A new study found that while handshakes are more polite in terms of social norms, they're a completely "germy" way to greet someone. Researchers suggest using "cleaner" alternatives such as fist bumps to minimize the spread of germs and disease.
Lead author and senior lecturer from Aberystwyth University David Whitworth and his colleagues experimented on three greetings - the handshake, fist bump, and high five - to determine the amount of germs passed in each greeting.
In one experiment, the researchers dipped a gloved hand into a container filled with E.coli bacteria. After drying the glove, they greeted the other person wearing a clean glove with a handshake, a fist bump, and a high five. The clean glove was then tested for bacteria.
Handshakes passed about ten times more germs than two fist bumps, and two times more than the high fives.
Whitworth suggested people consider the fist bump as a greeting for a cleaner alternative.
"You can't really imagine a world where people don't greet each other physically," he said to USA Today. "It seems to be a basic human need."
But Peter Hoffman, an expert of infection control at Public Health England, warned that the best alternative is still thorough and consistent hand washing, or bowing from a distance.
"Fist bumping may be one small way of avoiding getting nasty germs on your hands but there are lots of others that more than make up for it," Hoffman told BBC. "E.coli bacteria are found in the gut and so if someone has these bugs on their hands then basically their skin is covered in poo."
Further details of the study were published in the July 28 issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.
