How Your Mobile Phone Can Affect Your Health

The result of a scientific research has thrown more light on some things, which were thought to be impossible before. Every mobile phone user go about with his or her phone daily, without knowing how it could affect his or her health adversely.

In a new research by some scientists in London, United Kingdom, it was revealed that microscopic faecal matter is present on mobile phone, especially, if the holder of the device maintains a poor personal hygiene.

A female mobile phone user Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London analyzed 780 swab samples (390 from mobile phones and 390 from hands that held the mobile phones) from 12 different cities in the UK. The scientists, after their findings, discovered that 16% of both hands and phones, were contaminated with Escherichia coli (or E coli). E coli is a potentially illness-causing bacteria (singular: bacterium), which is as a result of faeces from the toilet or latrine.

 This happened possibly due to people, who do not use soap and water to wash their hands after using the toilet. The E coli will not infect the holders of the phones alone, but to everybody or anything that comes in contact with their hands. It should be known that bacteria survive outside the human body or on an inanimate object for hours, compared to viruses.

Therefore, E coli can survive on a person’s hands and on other hard surfaces for hours, especially in warm conditions (like on a smartphone screen), which is easily transferred to door handles, computer keyboards, food and other people and then back to you. People who have the habit of eating their food, without first washing their hands, should know that they are susceptible to running stomach and food contamination, through faecal material. A person who uses the toilet, should wash his two hands, before he handles his or her mobile phone. Dr Ron Cutler of Queen Mary, University of London states: “People may claim they wash their hands regularly, but science shows otherwise.” While trying to explain, who was more guilty of the practice of neglecting proper after toilet hand washing hygiene between males and females, Dr Val Curtis of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said: “In previous studies, we found that men’s hands were more contaminated than women’s and also that men wash hands less often, than women in public restrooms.”

Written by Eunice