Washing hands likely ineffective against H1N1
The word’s been out for several weeks now: Newseek has reported that hand-washing won’t help you avoid swine flu. That sounds like the bad news, but it’s really the good news: you’re not likely to get swine flu from touching things that someone who has swine flu has touched.
The most likely way to get swine flu (H1N1) is via particles of moisture suspended in the air and known to scientists as aerosol. That means that a really good way to avoid getting swine flu altogether is to wear a face mask all the time when you’re around other people. It may make you seem weird, but it likely will keep you safe from infection.
Coughs and sneezes from the swine-flu infected are what you have to fear if you’re worried about catching swine flu.
If wearing a face mask doesn’t strike you as a lot of fun but you still want to avoid the pork plague, then we suggest you start downing vitamins D and C: at least 3 grams a day in the case of vitamin C and at least 4,000 IU of D3 a day in the case of vitamin D. Going up to 10,000 IU a day of D won’t hurt you, and you should easily be able to consume 10 grams of C daily without ill effect.
The sign that you’ve taken too much vitamin C? Diarrhea, which also happens to be a symptom of swine flu, but we’re guessing you’ll be able to tell the difference. That’s only likely to happen if you exceed 10 grams of C a day, and it may take nearly twice that—average overdose of vitamin C is around 18 grams for most people.
But it shouldn’t take nearly that much to keep you healthy. And as we said, 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day should be more than enough to ward off the flu.
By the way, don’t give up on hand washing. It may not make any difference against swine flu, but for seasonal flu and colds, it likely will. And there are myriad other infections you can get from not washing your hands.
They’re all best avoided.
You might also like:
- Swine flu U.S. national emergency
- Swine flu: no big deal for some, deadly for others
- Factory farming is key to swine flu epidemic
- Nurse dies of swine flu
- First U.S. citizen dies from swine flu
The Big Picture (beyond our site):
- Office Furniture Buying Guide
- Swine Flu Killed 11,690, CDC Says
- What Swine Flu and Recessions Have in Common
- Weekend Reads: The Dreaded Swine Flu Edition
- Why You Catch the Flu in the Winter and Other Related Info...
You can leave a comment here, or a trackback from your own site.
