THINK TWICE.

`use our soaps, it kills all the bacteria over your skin surface' this is what most of the soap ads tell. But how safe are these soaps? Medical personell have to keep their hands very much clean because they do dressings , sutures the wound and due care should be taken that infection doesn't spread from their hands. We use betadine or spirit for that purpose.
What if the soaps that is used by general population removes all the bacteria? is it safe?

Remember that many of the bacteria on our skin surface are ` commensals' i.e.., they donot cause any harm to us rather they prevent the growth of certain disease causing bacteria. this happens by the fact that cammensals donot give space for the harmful bacteria. These cammensals are harmful only when the immune status of the person falls as occurs in hiv infection and in patients getting treatment for cancer on immunosupressive agents.

To understand the above concept here is a simple example - Most of you have taken antibiotics for fever , sore throat, running nose etc. Atleast some of you might have experienced loose stools after taking the antibiotice, why this happens? the oral antibiotics kill the commensals of the gut so that the harmful bacteria becomes active and cause diarrhoea in some. Nowadays some antibiotics also contain ` lactobacillus' , a commensal organism.

Think twice before using these soaps.