--- title: Tons of Viruses Live in Your Toothbrush and Showerhead description: Scientists are documenting the vibrant universe of microbes that call your bathroom home. canonical: https://time.com/7071966/viruses-bacteria-toothbrush-showerhead/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-10-09T14:30:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T18:24:17.080Z article:section: Health og:title: Tons of Viruses Live in Your Toothbrush and Showerhead og:description: Scientists are documenting the vibrant universe of microbes that call your bathroom home. og:url: https://time.com/7071966/viruses-bacteria-toothbrush-showerhead/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bfc4d3863b5c901/698a7a63db2987241126f3cb/GettyImages-1457162434.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: GettyImages-1457162434.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Tons of Viruses Live in Your Toothbrush and Showerhead twitter:description: Scientists are documenting the vibrant universe of microbes that call your bathroom home. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bfc4d3863b5c901/698a7a63db2987241126f3cb/GettyImages-1457162434.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Tons of Viruses Live in Your Toothbrush and Showerhead > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=aa9489bf-d9b4-47da-996c-ac83f93c8d6a&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1)  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Oct 9, 2024 2:30 PM UTC  Colorful toothbrushes in a glass on a blue background. The concept of oral health care for the whole family. Free space Colorful toothbrushes in a glass on a blue background. The concept of oral health care for the whole family. Free space Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Oct 9, 2024 2:30 PM UTC Forget about public restrooms: It turns out your own bathroom is teeming with viruses. Researchers at Northwestern University studied two things that most people use everyday—their toothbrush and showerhead—to see what was living in each. What they found was “quite surprising,” says Erica Hartmann, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern who led the study that focused on identifying virus species lurking in the bathroom. Most unexpected, she adds, was “how little we could identify that looked like something we had seen before. We found an incredible amount of diversity, which highlights how little we know and how much more we have to explore and discover.” But before you throw out your toothbrush or take apart your shower, keep in mind thatthe vast majority of viruses Hartmann and her team found were specific species known as bacteriophages, or viruses that almost exclusively infect bacterial cells and not human ones. Scientists have known about phages for nearly a century, but only recently developed the tools needed to identify and study them in more detail. “We know so little about phages,” says Hartmann, who published her [findings](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiomes/articles/10.3389/frmbi.2024.1396560/full) Oct. 9in the journal _Frontiers in Microbiomes_. “But understanding them and expanding our horizons in microbiology could have profound implications elsewhere.” **Read More:** [_How Much Do You Actually Need to Shower?_](https://time.com/6999556/how-often-should-you-shower/) Researchers, scientists, and drug developers already exploit phages and their ability to infect bacteria to better understand and deliver compounds that might kill certain bacteria. Those efforts could lead to more effective antimicrobial options that don’t involve antibiotics, against which bacteria can develop resistance quickly. “Phages are super fascinating and represent what I call the next frontier in biology or microbiology,” says Hartmann. The study was inspired by a [previous one](https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-020-00983-x) in which she and her team catalogued the bacteria found in bathrooms after people expressed concerns about whether bacteria spewed into the air every time they flushed their toilet, potentially contaminating their toothbrushes. In that study, Hartmann's team concluded the fear was unfounded, since most of the bacteria they identified were strains that originated in people’s mouths. This time, they turned their attention to viruses—and found the universe of phages. The good news is that since phages don’t infect human cells, “I don’t think anything in our results gives reason to be concerned,” says Hartmann. “There is absolutely nothing to worry about, so there is no reason to throw out your toothbrush because of this.” What the findings do reveal, however, is that there is a world of phages ripe for exploration. “Even identifying the ones on toothbrushes and showerheads expands what we know about phage biology and can help us explain why phage therapies do or don’t work in different contexts,” she says. “And the more we learn, the better that will inform things in phage-based therapeutics.” **Read More:** [_Reading This Will Make You Want to Floss_](https://time.com/7006165/flossing-teeth-benefits/) The diversity of what the researchers found—no two toothbrushes or two showerheads harbored the same population of phages—bodes well for the vast catalogue of phages that might become the foundation for new treatments. The findings also broaden our understanding of the range of effects that microbes can have on humans, both good and bad. “We don’t know exactly which microbes we are exposed to and when, or how they promote health or well-being,” says Hartmann. “But in general, it’s important to look at the microbes around us with an air of wonder and curiosity rather than fear. If we can figure out what all of the microbes are doing, and how they are doing it, we can be more intentional about how we care for things like toothbrushes—and in turn, care for ourselves and our environments better.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7071966/viruses-bacteria-toothbrush-showerhead/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7071966/viruses-bacteria-toothbrush-showerhead/"},"headline":"Tons of Viruses Live in Your Toothbrush and Showerhead","datePublished":"2024-10-09T14:30:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T18:24:17.080Z","description":"Scientists are documenting the vibrant universe of microbes that call your bathroom home.","url":"https://time.com/7071966/viruses-bacteria-toothbrush-showerhead/","keywords":["Research","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bfc4d3863b5c901/698a7a63db2987241126f3cb/GettyImages-1457162434.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bfc4d3863b5c901/698a7a63db2987241126f3cb/GettyImages-1457162434.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GettyImages-1457162434.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7071966/viruses-bacteria-toothbrush-showerhead/","name":"Tons of Viruses Live in Your Toothbrush and Showerhead"}}]}] ```