Good to know if you're considering biting your nails

Dr. WhiteCoat: “The bacteria count in the plaque on human teeth approaches the bacteria count in human feces.”

Comments

Anonymous
One of them is Treponema denticola, a spirochete. You’ll see it in human periodontal disease.
It’s related to Treponema pallidum.
Scrape your own plaque and smear it on a slide with a little saline, you can see those little beasties corkscrewing around.
That will prompt you to floss more often.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treponema_denticola
Mo
Somehow, I can’t believe this. 1/3 of feces is made up of bacteria, and no one has anywhere near that amount of bacteria in their mouths…
Dermdoc
The human feces bacteria count on fingernails should be enough to make you stop.
secretwave101
This factoid just entices me to not worry about washing my hands after a hearty BM.
Man, if I could just go back in time and tell that to my OCD mom before dinner!
Anonymous
The bacteria count on the biofilm surrounding teeth is probably comparable to feces. The human oral bugs are nasty, ask anyone who has treated a human bite.
I suspect total bacteria count for the volume of the mouth is less than feces since there’s living tissue filling up much of the space in the mouth. It’s just the coating around this living tissue that’s dirty.
Now if your mouth really is full of feces, you have a future in law. You may be a candidate for barrister of the year.

Good to know if you’re considering biting your nails