Touch Elbows Instead Of Shaking Hands, Expert Recommends

Something as natural and as seemingly harmless as shaking someone's hand could help spread diseases like the flu, according to one expert.

CBS News reports that Dr. Nathan Wolfe, professor of human biology at Stanford University has come out in favor of an elbow bump or a bow instead of the traditional handshake.

"Certainly this would help to decrease the spread of some infectious agents in the same way that sneezing into an elbow, rather than in a hand, does," Wolfe told CBS.

Ben Killingley, an infectious disease specialist at Nottingham University, told the Daily Mail that if people regularly wash their hands, it wouldn't be necessary to switch to an elbow bump when greeting strangers.

Wolfe's handshaking advice is contained in his new book, Viral Storm which also discusses past outbreaks of diseases like HIV, swine flu and bird flu.

The book comes as America's flu season lurks just around the corner. It seems like just yesterday germ-wary citizens were dawning surgical masks in the wake of the SARS epidemic and avoiding pork because of the swine flu.

Experts have already begun speculating about what the next flu pandemic could look like.