A Sigh Of Relief From The Bathroom

A Sigh Of Relief From The Bathroom

First, the good news.  Bacteria found on toothbrushes kept in bathrooms aren’t due to toilet aerosols. The bad news? The bugs have all come from your mouth.

Medical Life Sciences News reported that after studying microbial communities living on bristles from used toothbrushes, researchers at Northwestern University  found those communities matched microbes commonly found inside the mouth and on skin.

“This was true no matter where the toothbrushes had been stored, including shielded behind a closed medicine cabinet door or out in the open on the edge of a sink” said the website.

The study’s senior author, Erica Hartmann, was inspired to conduct the research after hearing concerns that flushing a toilet might generate a cloud of aerosol particles. She and her team affectionately called their study ‘Operation Pottymouth.’

I’m not saying that you can’t get toilet aerosols on your toothbrush when you flush the toilet. But, based on what we saw in our study, the overwhelming majority of microbes on your toothbrush probably came from your mouth."

The study, published in Microbiome, collected toothbrushes by mail and then extracted DNA from the bristles to examine the microbial communities found there.

The researchers then  compared these communities to those outlined by the Human Microbiome Project, which identified and catalogued microbial flora from different areas of the human body.

"Many people contributed samples to the Human Microbiome Project, so we have a general idea of what the human microbiome looks like," Blaustein said. "We found that the microbes on toothbrushes have a lot in common with the mouth and skin and very little in common with the human gut."

During the research, Hartmann’s team identified the  different types of microbes living on the toothbrushes. They found people with better oral hygiene, who regularly flossed and used mouthwash, had toothbrushes with less diverse microbial communities.

"If you practice good oral hygiene, then your toothbrush also will be relatively clean," Hartmann said. "But it’s a small difference. It’s not like people who regularly floss, brush and use mouthwash have no microbes and those who don’t have tons. There’s just a bit less diversity on toothbrushes from people who do all those things."

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