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Whether you wash your hands with cold or warm water makes no difference. The decisive factors are the duration of the washing process and the use of soap to remove pathogens as effectively as possible.
Hand washing is an important measure to prevent communicable diseases such as gastrointestinal infections and respiratory diseases. However, for respiratory infections, only a recent publication by the German Society wrote for General and Hospital Hygiene.
“It can also be observed time and again that washbasins in public toilets are often only equipped with cold water, users only rinse their hands briefly after using the toilet instead of washing them properly with soap,” says Romana Kordasiewicz-Stingler from MedUni Vienna’s Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology.
Cold – warm
As there are no recommendations regarding the optimum water temperature for the effectiveness of hand washing, the effectiveness of hand washing water that is four degrees Celsius cold and 40 degrees Celsius warm was tested by way of comparison. Five treatment groups, each with three participants, were examined.
The test subjects had to immerse their hands in water contaminated with E. coli bacteria (pathogens of diarrheal diseases, note), allow them to dry and then wash them with cold or warm water for ten or 20 seconds. One group also used soap, washing their hands for one minute in this case.
Soap helps best
It turned out that germs could be removed with cold and warm water. However, for those participants who rinsed their hands with water for 20 seconds, the germ load decreased significantly compared to the comparison group who only washed their hands for ten seconds.
However, the researchers write that washing hands with soap for one minute was the most efficient, regardless of whether the hands were rinsed with cold or warm water after soaping.
- source: red, science.ORF.at/Agencies
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