Swimming in chlorinated pools – I remember reading somewhere that when polio was spreading, they found that people who swam regularly in the rivers and lakes in the Northeast somewhere, that they did not get polio, and they hypothesized this was because they were exposed to the virus in the water and had built up immunities to it. In general swimming in a chlorinated pool will reduce exposure to microbes by the zillions.
Antimicrobial hand soap – washing with antimicrobial soap products kill all the microbes, not just the bad ones, so there has been controversy as to whether the benefit of using it to kill harmful bacteria is worth the risk of killing healthy bacteria.
Showering frequently – frequent washing will remove a lot of microbes, including those that keep a healthy microbiome on the skin. I wonder if yeast and fungal infections would be less common if people washed less. It would be an interesting experiment.
Brushing and flossing teeth – flossing is super important for removing food that gets stuck in our teeth and becomes a feast for bacteria, which can lead to periodontal disease. I feel in this case, keeping a decreased exposure to microbes is the best choice.
Washing clothes – dirty clothes have bacteria, sweat, and other microbes that , if not washed, will continue to proliferate and smell over time. I feel this another example of decreasing exposure is the more healthy choice.
Driving in cars vs. public transportation – I’m sure public airplanes, buses, and trains are teeming with beyond countable amounts of microbes. In our private cars, we are only exposed to our microbes.
Diet restrictions – our diet has a huge impact on our exposure to microbes. By restricting what we eat we automatically restrict our exposure to all kinds of microbes.
Diet variation – we can affect our exposure to a variety of microbes just based on what foods we eat. This has been proven with the use of probiotics and prebiotics.
Mask wearing – as we have seen, wearing masks reduces the amount of cross contamination by mouth in the human population. The medical community reported an extremely low rate of flu cases in 2020, attributed to high rate of mask wearing due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Disinfecting wipes – wipes with ammonia such as Clorox wipes, as well as wipes with alcohol, are being used in high volume because of the covid pandemic and I am sure overall we are enjoying much cleaner public establishments than we used to.
