Japanese scientists say it's time to ditch toilet roll for good - and buy a bidet instead

Forget rushing to the shops to panic buy - scientists are now suggesting we shouldn't use toilet roll at all.

Research from Japanese scientists, published in the 2022 Journal of Water and Health, suggested that using loo roll can lead to infections and bacteria spreading. They instead have proposed that using a bidet - something rarely found in UK homes - is the way forward.

The study found that those who used a bidet had 10 times fewer harmful bacteria on their hands, compared to toilet paper users. The most dangerous of these is a viral infection called clostridium difficile, which causes inflammatory bowel disease (IBS) and diarrhea.

In 2012 there were 1,646 deaths involving the C. difficile in the UK, with 15,000-30,000 deaths per year in the USA.

Researchers said: "Studies on the effectiveness of bidet toilets in the prevention of microbial contamination of the hands after defecation have only involved in vitro experiments. Therefore, this study examined microbial contamination of the hands of 32 volunteers after defecation with and without the use of a bidet toilet.

"Microbe contamination of the hands with and without the use of bidet toilets after defecation was examined in 32 nursing students. Double gloves were worn on the dominant hand and four layers of toilet paper were used to wipe the buttocks after defecation, and microbe contamination of the second glove (outer glove) of the double gloves was examined.

"We found that samples recovered on the gloves in 31 out of 32 volunteers (96.8 per cent) had markedly decreased cfu from recovered samples after using the bidet compared to without using the bidet."