Your watch could contain more bacteria than your toilet seat, research shows

According to new research, your watch could be a breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria.

Many of us might think of ourselves as hygiene obsessives who scrub our hands with soap and water every time we touch a toilet handle.

And for some of us even the thought of the germs blowing out of the hand dryer is enough to have us dabbing our hands dry on your carefully put together daytime outfit.

But how much thought do we put into the germs we could actually be carrying around on our wrists?

Read more: Shock bacteria test reveals why you should clean your family car

New research has found that we could in fact be carrying around more bacteria on our expensive timepieces than we realise.

Findings from watch and sunglasses specialist Tic Watches suggests that your watch could actually contain three times the amount of bacteria of the average toilet seat.

To come to their conclusions, researchers took swabs of 10 different types of watches so that the findings would be fair.

On each watch they looked for aerobic bacteria, yeast and mould, reporting that each swap captured a ‘worrying’ amount of dirt.

They found that plastic and leather options tended to build up more dirt and bacteria than metal watch straps, with the most bacteria being found on a Fitbit that contained eight times more bacteria than a toilet seat flush and handle.

Researchers also found that overall 24 per cent of British people never clean their watches at all, with a whopping 21 per cent doing so less than every six months.

And when it came to the biggest culprits for dirty watches, one gender won out over the other.

While findings reported that 24 per cent of men never cleaned their watches, it turns out that women clean them even less, as a massive 27 per cent of women never gave their timepieces a wipe.

However, while this may sound gross, it’s not harmful at all, as a certain amount of bacteria is actually healthy for the body.

Although it wouldn’t hurt to give your watch a quick wipe now and then…