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Your iPhone's dirtier than a toilet — and so are these other everyday items

Then next time you answer your smartphone and press it firmly to your face, consider this: Are you touching fecal matter right now?

<p>Your face is better off touching the toilet, studies show. (Photo: Manuel-F-O, Getty Images/iStockphoto)</p>

Then next time you answer your smartphone and press it firmly to your face, consider this: Are you touching fecal matter right now?

Quite possibly. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine found fecal matter on one out of every six smartphones in a 2011 study. Add to that the work of Charles Gerba, a famed University of Arizona microbiologist who found cell phones carry 10 times the bacteria of most toilet seats.

Familiar items we touch every day, from cellphones to kitchen sinks, swarm with far more germs than our toilets. And while 80 percent of infections come from what we touch, we rarely clean these ordinary items as often as our porcelain thrones.

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