Overly Sanitized Environments Lead to Poor Health?

bignickel writes "A recently-released study examined the health implications of living in an overly hygienic environment. According to the 'hygiene hypothesis,' living in such an environment early in life can lead to problems with allergies and autoimmune diseases. The study compared lab rodents with rats and mice living in the wild. Time to stop Lysol-bombing the house?"

Comments

No shit Sherlock

[ds_job]

All I had to do was google for "Eat a peck of dirt" and the sixth on the list is a New Scientist page from 1998

I was very interested in your article on the possible dangers of excessive hygiene ("Let them eat dirt", 18 July, p 26). As a child I remember being told by my mother that "you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die", a peck being two gallons. Is this another case of scientists catching up with what has been common knowledge for generations?

If you want to fork out for the premium content you can get the full text here.
I'm presuming that in eight years time some other publication will 'discover' this again and maybe someone will link to me instead of Susan Taylor...

Re:Farm Workers Without Allergies

[Ryanwoodings]

The May (2006) issue of National Geographic has an article titled "The Misery of Allergies", which lends a lot of credibility to your story. The article says scientists aren't sure what causes allergies, but there is evidence that shows that growing up in "dirtier" environments leads to fewer allergies.

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0605/featur e4/index.html

Re:Polio / Middle-class diseases

[Surt]

A lot of people like to think things are related. That's why we have scientists and statistics. In this particular case, scientists sampling water supplies of the middle/upper classes actually discovered for a fact that polio was less prevalent in the cleaner water supplies of the middle/upper class, and that reduced exposure in early infanthood or through the mother's immune system led to more crippling cases (the greater severity of polio infection after infanthood was also well researched and understood).

Here are a couple of resources:
http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/n/nycpolio.x ml
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/disea ses/polio.html

So now you don't just have to like to think they were related, you can just say the link was scientifically proven.

Re:Farm Workers Without Allergies

[timcharper]

Something interesting about allergies is that the tendency to develop allergies is inherited, but which allergies they develop don't appear to be inherited.

I just did a research paper on the subject recently (within the last yeaar). If you can find it, here's a reference to an article about it:
"Allergy Myths: Cleaning the Air." Saturday Evening Post 271.4 (1999): 26-28. EBSCOHost. Online. 13 Oct. 2005.

Re:The future

[Lord Ender]

Your friend probably has colitis. This is a disease that is quite common in the Western world, but does not exist at all in the "developing" world. The theory is that if your immune system is never exposed to parasites, it forgets what it is supposed to be attacking and goes after your large intestine. This will cause constant internal bleeding, mucus, and diarrhea. If it gets bad enough, you will die of malnutrition and dehydration. It usually starts happening, right out of nowhere, when you are in your 20s.

Because nobody likes to talk about digestion, there have been very few studies of colitis or attempts to find cures. People love to raise awareness and money to fight cancer and other disease, but ignore this one because intestine problems are not polite to discuss. It's a damn shame.