Are You Covering Yourself in Germs Every Time You Flush the Toilet?

You’ve been doing it practically your whole life: using the toilet—and then flushing. It’s simple and harmless…or is it? We hate to break it to you, but experts say flushing creates an invisible cloud of yucky stuff called “toilet plume” that’s hurled into the air by the force generated from flushing.

“The toilet plume may contain fecal bacteria, as well as other microorganisms that may be present in these substances, such as certain viruses,” says Amesh Adalja, M.D., an infectious disease specialist in Pittsburgh.

Essentially, when you lean over the bowl to flush, you could be shooting poop particles and germs directly into the air around you.

Take a second to let that sink in.

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The toilet plume was first discovered in 1975 by microbiologist Charles Gerba after he put germs in a toilet to test if they still survived after flushing. “There is a possibility that a person may acquire an infection from an aerosol produced by a toilet,” he wrote in a research paper published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

While subsequent studies have found that people can get sick from the toilet plume, more research is still needed to determine how it actually happens.

The main bacteria found in the plume is E. coli, which can cause bacterial gastroenteritis, a.k.a. abdominal pain and diarrhea, says Marc Leavey, M.D., a primary care specialist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

Few toilet plume-related illnesses have been documented, though, so it’s unclear how much of a risk it really poses, says Adalja. He notes that some outbreaks of gastroenteritis on airplanes and cruise ships have been linked to the plume, as well as a SARS outbreak in 2003 when a patient in Hong Kong may have spread the virus with a flush.

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Speaking of outbreaks…if someone in your house has a stomach bug, it might be best to convince them to stick to using just one toilet and to clean it after each use.

Why? Adalja says there are always going to be “residual remnants” in the bowl that aren’t reached by the water stream after someone flushes. With time, those remnants can slide into the toilet bowl and wind up in the plume, causing you to get sick, too.

And although studies on how far the plume spray can go have been inconsistent, some have shown that the germs in it have reached sinks and toothbrushes. Meaning, you might want to start keeping a lid on your toothbrush holder.

But before you completely disinfect your bathroom after every flush, keep in mind that there’s a much easier solution: Adalja says flushing with the lid down can minimize the size of the plume.

So remember to always keep this mantra on the back burner: Flip it down before you flush.

Gifs courtesy of giphy.com

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