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1 Hand, 5 Digits: 150 Bacteria Types

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies.

A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do.

And everybody carries more types of bacteria than researchers expected to find.

"One thing that really is astonishing is the variability between individuals, and also between hands on the same individual," said University of Colorado biochemistry assistant professor Rob Knight, a co-author of the paper.

"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology. The average hand harbored 150 species.

Asked if guys should worry about holding hands with girls, Knight said: "I guess it depends on which girl."

He stressed that "the vast majority of the bacteria we have on our body are either harmless or beneficial ... the pathogens are a small minority."

The Associated Press

HANDS-ON RESEARCH

Some highlights of the study:

•Researchers aren't sure why women harbored a greater variety of bacteria than men, but suggested it may be because men generally have more acidic skin than women.

•Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production.

•They identified 4,742 species of bacteria overall, only 5 of which were on every hand.

•The average hand harbored 150 species of bacteria.

•Not only did individuals have few types of bacteria in common, the left and right hands of the same individual shared only about 17 percent of the same bacteria types, the researchers found.

•The differences between dominant and non-dominant hands were probably caused by environmental conditions such as oil production, salinity, moisture or variable environmental surfaces touched by either hand of an individual, Fierer said.

Source: Study published in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as reported by The Associated Press

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