Come on, let’s tell the truth: pick your nose with the finger is a common habit? While some people flatly deny that they have ever touched the inside of their nose, the chance that this is true is slim to anyone.
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Everyone has had to pick their nose one day without knowing they were at an alarming risk. At least that’s what recent research on the subject has found.
Picking your nose can be very risky: here’s why
Your parents must have told you not to pick your nose in public. It is a matter of good manners and politeness to avoid this unsanitary act which can disgust other people. Including, the attitude can cause even more inconvenience, as tests developed at a university in Australia show.
Researchers at Griffith University conducted some tests with mice and came to a surprising conclusion. Picking your nose may be related to Alzheimers and with dementia.
What happens is that a bacterium is able to leave the olfactory nerve and reach the human brain. This microorganism is capable of creating telltale signs of degenerative diseases of the central nervous system.
The scientific journal Scientific Reports published the study and showed that the bacteria Chlamydia pneumoniae it made its way from the optic nerve to the brain and managed to invade the central nervous system. Subsequently, the human neurological organ responds by generating deposits of amyloid-beta protein, which characterize one of the traits of Alzheimer’s.
According to one of the researchers, Professor James St John, the discovery can be considered worrying. Moreover, the possibility revealed by the mice can easily be repeated in the human organism.
Picking your nose with an infected hand is not a difficult thing to do. The olfactory nerve is one of the shortest pathways for any pathogen to reach a person’s brain.
New research phases coming soon
After the discovery and warning about the potential danger of picking your nose, researchers are already planning a new phase.
“We need to do this study in humans and confirm if the pathway works the same way. It is a research already proposed by many, but not yet concluded. What we do know is that these same bacteria they’re present in humans, but we haven’t figured out how they get there,” added St John.
If you have a bad habit of picking your nose, use your hands and never pluck the hairs from your nostrils. Small bruises can facilitate internal contamination.
