Handshake May be as Dangerous as smoking.

A controversial report has called for doctors to stop shaking patient's hands and says the practice is as dangerous as smoking in public.

The team claims that even though the handshake is a deeply established cultural custom it can spread diseases between patients.

Some parallels may be drawn between the proposal to remove the handshake from the health care setting and previous efforts to ban smoking in public places; the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) team claims.

The UCLA team claims that even though the handshake is a deeply established cultural custom, it can spread diseases between patients - and should be replaced by a wave or a bow.

The handshake has evolved over centuries into its currently profound cultural role. Artifacts from ancient Greece suggest that the handshake began as a general gesture of peace , revealing one's open palm as a symbol of honesty and trust. The custom and technique of this open palm gesture subsequently evolved into the modern form of the handshake now representing an international symbol of greeting/departure, reconciliation,respect,friendship, peace, congratulations,good sportsmanship or formal agreement.

''In recent years there has been increasing recognition of the hand as a vector for infection, leading to the formal recommendation and policies regarding hand hygiene in hospitals and other health care facilities.'' says the team led by Mark Sklansky in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Health care workers hand become contaminated with pathogens from their patients and despite efforts to limit the spread of disease , cress-contamination of health care workers hands commonly commonly occurs through routine patient and environmental contact'' the report states.

It calls for the handshake to be replaced by a new gesture. ''Regulations to restrict the handshake from the health care setting in conjunction with more robust hand hygiene programs , may help limit the spread disease and thus could potentially decrease the clinical and economic burden associated with hospital acquired infections and antimicrobial resistance.