New York – According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the sneeze travels at 103 miles an hour. With every sneeze, thousands of germ-filled droplets are released, which spread farther than most of us would imagine.
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Knowing how a sneeze works can prevent you from getting sick.
It may seem silly, but as a 1948 health film shows, the simple sneeze is how world epidemics spread. Maybe it’s not so simple at all.
“Sneezing is one route for this virus to spread,” says Dr. Uttam Sinha, who adds that when people interact with each other, even over great distances, they can swap viruses.
It all starts when your nose wants to get rid of something that doesn’t belong, be it pepper or the flu.
“It senses the foreign body and gives a signal to the brain that there is some foreign body [that] has entered, then the brain will ask the diaphragm and the chest muscle to undergo contraction,” says Sinha.
And then you sneeze, sending 100,000 droplets of germs flying.
“Maybe one drop of water, along with other things like bacteria, virus, dead cells or live cells,” he says.
A single sneeze could send droplets as far as 100 feet.
The best prevention – wash your hands frequently, and like the old film says, just bear in mind that viral particles can stay alive on surfaces for 24 hours or more.
So just because you don’t see the sneeze doesn’t mean you can’t pick up germs. Seats and rails on the subway, taxi doors, and elevator buttons are hot spots for the spread of illnesses.
good idea to sneeze into a tissue
Or sneeze into the bend of the inside of your arm, which isn’t going to be spreading the germs to nearly as many surfaces as your hand would (doorknobs, phones, keyboards, other hands in handshakes, food, etc.)
this is nonsense what about preventetive medicine like ways to stimulate the immune system that ure strong to reject it while living like normal human being we dont want to encourage those with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
How about not sneezeing?
At the next olympics they should have sneeze races, judging the speed of the sneeze, distance travelled and number of drops disbursed.
Start training right now, because paterson is planning on bringing in a sneeze tax….
The NY Times reported today that many children from the closed shoools were out today rather than staying home, and some were shopping in malls, which could help spread the virus to the general population from the student population.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/nyregion/21kids.html?hpw