For Italians, coffee is more than just a drink: it is a ritual, inextricably intertwined with our daily life. Eight out of ten people drink at least one a day, and even if there are those who would never get tired of the mocha, the numbers tell us that the majority of cups are filled by coffee machines. We find them everywhere, even in the form of dispensers, from schools to hospitals, from the gym to the train. And also in homes. But are they healthy?
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A research team from the Institute for Clinical Microbiology and Hospital Hygiene in Ludwigsburg, Germany, wanted to understand whether coffee machines can spread diseases. And to do so they began their research by swabbing 17 coffee machines from the break rooms and offices of German hospitals and 8 machines in the homes of healthcare workers. The main hideout of pathogens. It was discovered that three times more bacteria live in hospital machines than in domestic ones. Most of the microorganisms detected are commonly found on the skin or in the intestine and did not pose a health threat: only a few medically relevant or antibiotic-resistant pathogens were identified, and this is good news, but the small sample confirms that they could actually be a vector of diseases.
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“With these findings we can reassure healthcare workers concerned about their daily caffeine intake,” the researchers write. But it is clear that everything depends on the cleaning and sanitization of the machine. The temperatures reached by the water and coffee, in fact, are not enough to “kill” the pathogens that can hide there. The discovery was published in the Christmas issue of Bmj in an attempt to identify an alternative “distributor” of nosocomial infections. And given that the World Health Organization is recommending the elimination of any potential carrier of “Eskape” pathogens, as Staphylococcus aureus resistant to methicillin, it was important to do these first tests. For the moment “a general ban does not seem necessary”, but further investigation will be needed. The main recommendation, as also emerged in a another study Published on Nature Scientific Report conducted by researchers from the University of Valencia, is cleaning: only with the correct maintenance of the machines can it be prevented from becoming a receptacle for bacteria potentially harmful to health, starting with the constant emptying and cleaning of the container of used capsules.
81% of the relevant sample
In the new German study, each of the machines was swabbed at five different sites: the drip tray, the socket, the buttons, the handle and the inside of the water tank. And the hospital machines showed 360 strains of microorganisms isolated on 72 positive swabs: 126 were in the drip tray, 41 on the buttons and 61 on the socket, 59 on the outside and 73 inside the tank. In the domestic ones, used only by healthcare personnel, the strains identified were 135 out of 34 positive swabs, with the highest number of bacteria in the drip tray, which we perhaps too often neglect to clean. 81% of the bacteria present in the hospital’s coffee machines were defined as “medically relevant”, includingEscherichia coli which is the bacterium more common of infections contracted in hospital during hospitalization.
Not just Staphylococcus
But the most dangerous one found was Staphylococcus aureus, inside the water tank as well as on a start button of a home machine. “This Gram positive bacterium is transmitted mainly through skin contact and the colonization of the buttons can pose a risk of transmission,” explains the microbiologist Sarah Victoria Walker. “The growth inside the water tank indicates that users are also touching unlikely parts of the machines.” This once again highlights the usefulness – too often overlooked – “of hand hygiene, which significantly reduces the risk of transmitting pathogens. Regular and thorough cleaning of coffee machines also further reduces the risk of epidemics”, in hospitals as well as in many other community places, from schools to gyms.
Clean more regularly
“The curiosity that led us to conduct this study had a knock-on effect: the results were expected by all the users of the coffee machines we involved in the research, and our feedback led to extensive cleaning measures. All tested machines are still in use, except one, and are now being cleaned more regularly. Our thoughts now turn to all tea drinkers. Will teapots and kettles be equally breeding grounds for bacteria? High temperatures – far greater than those of coffee machines – will they be enough to kill all potential pathogens?” asks Dr. Walker. And we too can’t wait to hear the results of their next investigation.
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