Medical Matters with Jeremy Kenton | Covid Update

This is Bay Radio

I'm Jeremy Kenton. Researchers at the University College of London have found a link between gum disease and high blood pressure

Now, the normal blood pressure range is measured with what's known as systolic and the diastolic

Normally, around 120 over 80, so that's measured in millimeters of mercury

And they found that 14% of people with peridontitis had a medically high blood pressure

in other words, over 140 on this estolic. The figure is slashed in half for people with good oral health

but the study showed that the gum disease gave a higher risk factor of high blood pressure

And one has to remember that periodontitis is an infection that often leads to bleeding and can result in bone loss in the jaw and also tooth loss

And the habits of contact lens wearers were ysing. by researchers from the UK

And they found that the risk of infection with the frequency of showering increased

This can often lead to microbial keratitis, which is an infection of the eye

causing a painful redness. And if left untreated, it can cause damage to the surface of the cornea

causing blurred vision and corneal scarring. And they found that those who showered with..

contact lenses in were more likely to have it and also the fan that wearing contact lenses while sleeping increase that risk of the infection And it estimated that over 4 million people in the UK alone wear contact

lenses and that associated eye infections are common. And a new study indicates that using

air hand dryers to dry your hands may actually spread germs more than paper towels

previous studies have also found that the hand dryers can blow bacteria from the bathroom air back onto your hands

and experts say that proper hand washing is still the most important action we can take to prevent transmitting COVID-19

because the soap has an effect on the outer layer of the COVID-19 virus

Now, what the researchers did was that they treated hands either bare-handed people or wearing protective gloves

where the harmless virus then asked the participants to dry their hands

either using paper towels or the air dryers. They then detected the amount of virus that was transferred to various surfaces around the hospital

And when the researchers compared the two drying methods, they found that people who dried their hands using the air dryer

had spread more of the virus than those who use disposable paper hand towels

So the advice is paper hand towels. The