Leaving your shoes at the front door isn’t simply a good practice, it’s a way to keep your health and your indoor environment free of dangerous microbes.

Your shoes ARE FILTHY and you wear them INTO YOUR HOME? How many of us thoughtlessly enter our homes after simply wiping our shoes on the doormat, then walking throughout our home and giving no thought to anything other than not tripping on a carpet? Research is now pointing to the seriousness of these fractions in terms of our physical health by engaging in this practice.

While we have seen that those who were raised in non–Western cultures remove their shoes at the doorway, we gave no thought to it other than it was a cultural imperative. Now, the seriousness of this lack of attention to health is rising to the top, and it is truly serious. It's time to change your practices and those of your children immediately. There is no time to be wasted. You may already have affected your indoor environment, and you may need to take extra precautions to rectify the damage that has been done.

On the outside, the normal shoe has 421,000 units of bacteria and on the inside, it has 2,887 units. Researchers have found hundreds of different germs on the bottoms of shoes, such as:

1. MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This superbug is not killed by common medicines and can cause very dangerous infections.

2. Bacteria called Escherichia coli (E. coli) live in your gut and can make you sick with diarrhea and other things.

3. The bacteria Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) can cause severe diarrhea and colitis that can be life-threatening.

If someone told you that all the above and more, as yet unidentified, were present on the soles of your shoes and that you willingly carry them into your home to spread disease, what would your reaction be? But that's exactly what you do when you take your dirty shoes from the outdoor environment into your healthy home.

If you were to leave your shoes at the door, imagine what a health – benefit that would be for you and everyone who lives in your home or enters your home as a guest. But you don't do it. Why is that? And what are you doing if you fail to perform this simple sanitation act?

How healthcare-associated diseases spread depends heavily on surfaces and microbes in the environment. Infectious diseases could spread through shoe soles. Studies have been done to determine how common infectious pathogens are on shoe soles and how to clean them, but there has never been a thorough review.

Thirteen studies supported the idea that dangerous pathogens can spread through shoe soles. Fifteen studies looked into different ways to clean shoe soles. Many studies have been conducted on various cleaning methods, but none have consistently shown the ability to clean shoe soles. Where organisms are multidrug-resistant and systemic antibiotics do not work, this may be specifically important.

Remember, the places that you think are least dangerous in terms of pathogens may be where you pick them up and carry them home in the millions. So, don't think because you haven't walked in dirt or some unsanitary place that you are safe. You are not. Go to the mall and walk around and bring home millions of tiny invaders that can mean disease or even death to you or your loved ones. It's as simple as that, and you never even consider it.

Germs are everywhere, even if you don’t step on anything gross. There are germs ready to stick to your shoes, sneakers, heels, and boots in every public place, like the bathroom (yuck), the grocery store, and the mall. Some of them can even make you sick.

Besides the bacteria, you may track in heavy metals, which are injurious, especially to young children and babies. These metals embedded in paint and walls where you may walk almost invisibly chip off, enter the air, and fall to the surface where you walk. You now pick them up on the soles of your shoes and carry those along with the pathogens. It can be a mixture of lethality for your health.

In addition to the pathogens and heavy metals, you are also probably tracking pesticides used on people's lawns or dangerous cleaning materials that can be accumulated almost anywhere. This goes without saying that seasonal allergens are also exacerbated by the pollen you will accumulate on all your clothes and shoes, in particular.

What about shoes in healthcare settings? You may not work there, but you may be visiting there or have an appointment and you will walk down the hallways, sit in the waiting rooms and then in the room where you will have any testing or evaluations done. All of these are opportunities for infection by dangerous pathogens.

Around 80% of shoes worn in healthcare settings pick up germs that can make people sick. The International Labor Organization found that 90% of the shoes they tested could track dangerous bacteria with the user wherever they went. The healthcare professional you may be visiting may also be infecting you because they have not properly attended to their shoe sanitation.

In one small study, seven of the eight shoes professionals wore, cleaning the shoe soles was not enough to help. The contamination was believed by the researchers to be caused by the materials used in the upper part of the sports shoes, which facilitated air circulation and absorbed sweat from the feet. Many healthcare professionals wear this type of athletic sportswear shoe, so their shoes are extremely vulnerable to contamination.

How Should Shoes Be Cleaned?

It is important to clean your shoes often to remove dirt and prevent germs and fungi from growing. Clean the outside with a soft brush or cloth; if you can, remove the bottoms to clean them separately. You should also use antiseptic, antifungal, and insecticide sprays inside the shoes to kill germs, fungi, bugs, and their eggs and larvae.

Don't wear the same shoes every day. Rotate whatever you are wearing so that the shoe has an opportunity to dry in a separate storage rack or place you have designated for them. Don't store them in direct sunlight or where there is poor ventilation. You don't want your shoes to breed more germs and thereby thwart your efforts to be healthier.

Some recommend, for the outside sole of your shoes, a mixture of mild bleach and water or alcohol and water. But this does not mean that after you do that you can wear them in the home. As is always the case, safe is better than being sorry.