Avoiding Germs: Have a Holly Jolly Hydrogen Peroxide Holiday

May your holiday

-- fizz impressively on contact
-- bring renewed life and vigor to your family's branches and vine
-- be free from all traces of salmonella and other bacterial food poisoning
-- be filled with the bright smiles of good oral health
-- leave behind no stains, foul odors or harmful by-products

Hydrogen peroxide, that inexpensive brown bottle on the bottom shelf of your local drug store, has recently taken on a new and exciting life as a cure-all for everything from bacteria-laden water to emphysema. (Although the medical proof behind the emphysema treatment is still, at this point, a bit dubious. People who claim to be doctors inject hydrogen peroxide directly into the veins of their short-winded patients in the belief that the hydrogen peroxide bubbles will travel through the bloodstream and finally clean out the area of the lung where the capillaries meet the tiny air sacs of the lungs, the alveoli. At this point of exchange, inhaled oxygen is released into the bloodstream and carbon dioxide from the bloodstream is released to the lung for exhalation, along with the junk form the lungs causing the emhysema. That's the idea, anyway.)

And a fascinating idea it is. No doubt it offers great hope to those suffering from emphysema even though it has yet to be medically proven or deemed as safe. However, there are many other great uses of hydrogen peroxide that have been proven. There has been a huge increase in the number of water treatment facilities that are using hydrogen peroxide to kill off bacteria in the water supply. Also in the "green" movement, hydrogen peroxide has recently gained a great deal of popularity because it kills germs including toxic mold, removes most protein-based stains and biodegrades harmlessly into hydrogen and water.