How does soap kill germs?

One of the best ways to protect yourself from disease-causing germs is to wash your hands with soap and water. How do soapy suds kill the bad guys?

According to Dr. Lee Riley, a physician and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, soap's germ-zapping powers are built into its structure. The head and tail are both water-loving. The coronaviruses that cause the disease COVID-19 are vulnerable to a soap molecule's fat-puncturing tail due to the fact that they have a lipids membranes.

Riley told Live Science that the tail inserts itself into thebacteria's cell wall.

Some types of pathogens have strong cell walls, so they can survive even after soap's tail hits their membranes. Even in these cases, soap can be used to fight infections.

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When soap is used to attack these pathogens, the soap's tails attach to the cell's lipids. The soap molecule forms a ball around the pathogen and is called a micelle. When you wash your hands with soap and water, it's easy to transfer the germs from your hands to the drain.

Is it possible to be Germ-free?

The effectiveness of soap was evaluated in 2010 by having 20 volunteers wash their hands 480 times. The subjects were randomly assigned to either wash their hands with soap or not wash their hands at all. Scientists reported in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health that their hands were tested for bugs.

The group of subjects that didn't wash their hands had a higher percentage ofbacteria than the others. The study subjects who washed their hands alone had 23% of thebacteria present. In the group that washed their hands with soap and water, 8% of them were found to have some type of disease.

Antibacterial soap can be harmful, because it drives the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains ofbacteria, because it is so effective at eliminating and annihilating the germs on our hands, and because soap molecule are so effective at eliminating and annihilating the germs on our hands, The rise of antibiotic-resistantbacteria in the local water supply can be promoted by the washing down of antibacterial soap.

The good ones that we depend on to keep us healthy are all killed by antibacterial soap.

There is a key component required for soap to work. That's the end. The tail end of the soap molecule needs at least 20 seconds to bind itself to the pathogens on your hands. It's possible to miss out on the full protective effect of soap if you cut that time short.

It was originally published on Live Science