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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?"
It will be no problem at all if there are moon colonies. But, as we all know there aren't (although some conspiracy theorists know there are).
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
My mother was stricken with Polio in the early 50's, just a few years before the vaccine was approved.
Although I've never seen any literature that support this, she says Polio was known as a Middle-class disease, since the middle-class were more likely to have cleaner houses (thus not exposing babies to as many germs and developing healthy immune systems). The fact that her mother was a clean-freak before and after my mother was born may be coincidental to her contracting Polio, but I like to think they're related.
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2B1ASK1
There's an easy way!
"Powers. I have them."
This is based mostly on BS, but interesting (at least to me) nonetheless...
When my mom was pregnant with me, at some point she had a bad case of poison ivy. I rarely ever get poison ivy, and if I do, it's only for a couple days, and is hardly noticable. My older sister on the other hand, is quite allergic to poison ivy, and generally needs medication to control it if she gets it. I've also heard of similar stories, but can't be arsed right now to remember them. Now, we all know that a baby's immune system is related to how good the mother's immune system is. I postulate that if a pregnant woman becomes infected with any sort of non-fatal/non-life-threating disease, bacteria, virus, the baby will, as a result, be more resistant to it, if not totally immune.
So, instead of isolating pregnant women from everything, I say we start giving them controlled infections of common sicknesses, so that their immune systems produce the atibodies, and pass them on to the baby.
Of course, I could just be completely insane....
Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
I often work inside a clean room, and once I saw a colleague of mine have a severe hay fever attack in there. Tears streamed from his eyes etc. He had to sit down for a while to recover. He told me it's the change of environment (in this case from dirty to clean air) that did it for him. Very strange.
-- Cheers!
That information, while useful, would probably be less useful than you might think. Even if you discount the typical problems associated with questionnaire-based studies, such a study will won't distinguish between problems caused by sterile environments and problems caused by different allergens that may be associated with air conditioning systems or with urban areas in general.
http://outcampaign.org/
IIRC, the original study that popularized this idea compared Germans who grew up in cities and on farms and found a lower rate of allergies in the latter.
As for this mouse study -- lab mice and wild mice are extremely different animals, as lab mouse strains (which used to be pet mouse strains) as have been selected for two hundred years to grow in close quarters. It's very hard to distinguish environmental and genetic effects in this case.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
While the theory really appeals to me, my life experience indicates otherwise.
My father grew up in a farming family and, like most, he was expected to pitch in and work from an early age. However, he also has severe allergies to grain dust, pollen and a number of other respiratory related things. These just got worse over the years. When he helps out on the farm now, he actually wears an aspestos removal suit with a breather unit. I grew up in a sterile house - excessive vacuuming and cleaning. While I too have allergies, they're not nearly as bad as my father's.
The one aspect I could believe is that my father's allergies got worse when he stopped being exposed to irritants on a regular basis. However, he's always been allergic despite frequent early exposure.
No Clue
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0605/featur e4/index.html
The article is about allergies in specific, but is very relavant. A few researchers are claiming that because our environments are so sterile as children these days, more adults have allergies (and illness) as a result of not being exposed to certain elements (good or bad organisms, etc) as a child. Compelling read, I highly recommend it.
-Ponga
Like you said, that is your *personal* experience.
Whereas I grew up just as you did, playing outside, lots of different animals, hay, etc. Not a Lysol environment at all. And then around 10 years old, while making tunnels and forts in a big pile of haybales with friends I got hit with the hayfever. Around the same time I developed an allergy to cats. My father is exactly like this and his father is as well (allergic to cat dander and have hayfever).
Oh, and you can be born with allergies. I'm allergic to penicillin - given some as a newborn and developed a rash (apparently a common allergic reaction to it).
I'm sure that there are others that can refute your hypothesis.
But I still believe that it is good to not grow up in a sterile environment. I'm not thinking about allergies, but just about having an immune system that gets some exercise and building up a catalog of antibodies that can respond to similar threats. (in fact, isn't the allergic reaction your immune system's response to that allergen?)
As I understand it, the immune-strengthening effect doesn't come from exposure to high concentrations of pathogens, but from ongoing low-level exposure: playing in the sandpit, swimming in the river, that kind of thing.
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...I have a personal counterpoint to some of them. I grew up doing a lot of the typical outside kid things, but still ended up with some pretty bad allergies to grass and other pollens. That doesn't mean I don't agree with the article - I think it's fairly intuitive that a too-clean environment results in a weaker immune system. Just saying that the reverse isn't guaranteed.
Floride replaces iodine in the thyroid, upsetting the metabolism, causing weight gain and lethargy.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
It could also be that those with allergies tend to move away from the farms. I wouldn't last a week on a farm without some Zyrtec.
My sister and I grew up in the same environment. We lived in air conditioning, but spent most of our childhood playing outdoors in suburbs of Minneapolis. I have severe pollen-based allergies. If I do not have air conditioning or medication, I can wake up with my eyes glued shut from secretions, my throat can hurt like the worst strep throat you ever had, and my eyes and ears itch constantly. I am also mildly allergic to pretty much every food. My sister has no allergies of any kind.
My family was on the farm two generations ago, and one generation ago they still worked on the farm during the summer. Some of them have allergies, some don't.
My daughter's skin has reacted to certain foods since she was a baby.
So, I think there are probably genetic predispositions to allergies. However, I think there may be a role for environment in those who are less severely predisposed to allergies than the members of my family.
Since their users haven't had to develop antivirus instincts, are they more susceptable to a catastrophic plague in the future?
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I cna't say I agree with this article. I grew up in a mid atlantic state in the 80s. Our house had no a/c, so I was exposed to dust and pollen from the outdoors year round, plus I was outside playing a lot. Mom was a pretty busy person, so things like dusting and vacuuming weren't as regular as they were in other people's houses. I've been stuffed up my whole life and this past year I was tested for allergies, it turns out I am allergic to dust, mold, and various tree pollens. Basically 3 things I have been exposed to my entire life.
Too much of a good thing will always be a bad thing. Just like how a little bit of dark chocolate is good for the heart, a lot is hardly good for the gut. You can't have it go both ways though. Personally, I'd rather Lysol bomb the house than share it with disease carrying bacteria.
I used to always spend all of my time outside, but then I grew up, and now I find myself in a cubicle all of the time. Apparently playing outside from the time I was 2 till probably late middle school years did nothing to prevent allgeries that I have now. I would say I have a predisposition toward them. I have relatives who have the same types of allergies and are sick at the same times as I am. Chances are, like everything else, allergies are a combination of genetics and environment.
This applies to latex allergies as well. Some hospital employees will become allergic to latex while being exposed to it repeatedly in a sterile environment.
It's just funny. The GPP indicates that a family that works on the farm does not get allergies to many things like dust and pollen, but discounts the idea that genetics influences allergies in the least. IE, if the parents are not allergic to dust and take up a life of farming, then their children are not likely to exhibit such ailments as well.
The entire premise is flawed because there is no such thing as overly hygienic. Sure, if you grow up in a sealed bubble, you will likely lack antibodies for certain things. However, you will have antibodies passed onto you from your mother.
We already know that every living thing develops certain immunities/resistance in specific environments. People in certain countries develop resistance to many indigenous parasites, while vistors become seriously ill.
If I do get sick, at least I'll live. More people die in developing countries from things we can easily remedy than the other way around.
This article is just more anti-western rhetoric suggesting that the west would be better off if we were dirtier and that we should apologize for being better off than someone else. We've already gone through our development and I'm thankful to have benefitted from it.
I knew this when I was seven years old.
;)
I had been diagnosed at five with allergies and was getting the weekly shots. Ideally, it was supposed to slow down to once every two weeks, then once every three... but then I made the inductive leap that "excessive cleanliness" was the problem; if one was too clean, I reasoned, the immune system would get twitchy and trigger-happy for lack of genuine targets.
So I avoided baths and fought excessive face-washing etc. Of course, my real motivation was the same as any other young boy... but interestingly, I was able to quit the allergy shots cold turkey well before it was scheduled to run out, and to this day I have no discernible allergy issues.
I'm glad that the medical research establishment has finally caught up
I checked on your assertion and several reputable sources agree with you (i.e. outside of the anti-flouride crowd).
Since flouride in food and water is almost inescapable nowadays, can the effect from flouride be overcome with higher levels of iodine in your diet or through supplements? I've heard of anti-radiation supplements that provided superdoses of iodine so that radioactive iodine from fallout wouldn't be taken up by your thyroid. Would a similar plan exclude flouride as effectively?
This also provides a causal hypothesis for an experiment I've been conducting on myself. I've been taking sugar pills or one-a-day multivitamins using a double-blind method (and capsules to hide the differences in flavor and pill shape) to confirm or refute my subjective observation that on days when I take a multivitamin in the morning, my energy level is much higher through that day. I just checked, and the multivitamin I'm using in the test does indeed have 300% RDA of iodine (as potassium iodide). When this experiment is complete, I think I've found my next experiment...
Regards,
Ross
Intuitive: I figure your immune system is like anything else in your body -- if it doesn't get a regular workout it becomes less efficient and when you stress it, it may behave unpredictably.
Anecdotal: I grew up playing outside a lot. My favorite thing to do was hydraulic engineering on mud-puddles. I built dams, canals, locks with gates, stirred up mud to see how it behaved, etc. I was out in the woods a fair bit, got the occasional tick (this was before Lyme disease was such a concern, and as long as you caught the ticks the same day, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever was nothing to worry about). We had cats, our relatives had dogs, etc. To this day I have relatively little issue with allergies or illnesses of any kind. Yes, dust makes me sneeze, but it honestly puzzles me why people stampede to get flu shots every year -- I've had the flu maybe twice in my life, it sucked, it lasted about three days each time, and I got over it. People look at me like I'm nuts -- "You're not getting a flu shot? WHY NOT???"
On the other hand, just about all the people I know with allergies, constant colds, etc. are the ones with a horror of anything that might be less than perfectly fresh and germ-free. I drink milk that's a few days past the sell-by, I eat stuff that's been in the fridge a couple days, I have lunch at greasy spoons where the kitchen staff maybe doesn't wash their hands every time they touch their own face. I don't go out of my way to find "dangerous" food or items, but neither do I avoid things that may have tiny amounts of "harmful" stuff on them like my life is at risk every time I eat a sandwich.
Logical: I won't use antibacterial soaps unless there's no alternative. Why? Because using them indiscriminately breeds resistant bacteria. This is just logic backed up by known scientific observation of microbial evolution. It's the reason your doctor won't (or at least, shouldn't) prescribe you antibiotics every time you have a fever -- if it's not bacterial, the drugs wouldn't do you any good and would breed resistance in bacteria that aren't causing you any issues yet. Then those resistant strains would take over and now you have a problem, and it's a tough problem because the doctor has to give you massive doses, or use a different antibiotic -- and there are only so many antibiotics out there. Trying to sterilize the environment is the same thing on a grander scale.
If more parents let their kids go ahead and, for example, chew on the cat's tail, the kid's immune system would get exposed to a few new agents (and learn to deal with them), and the cat would swat the kid who would then learn "don't chew on kitty, it hurts". That's two problems solved. Don't let them play in raw sewage, but don't keep them in a plastic bubble either.
-- Old Man Kensey
I have a similar experience to yours. I was diagnosed as being allergic to pollen, animal dander, dust of any sort, and so on. My mom protected my brother and I from those things like crazy. When I was in the presence of a cat for example I would have a hard time breathing and my eyes would swell up and water like crazy. But guess what? After my sisters started adopting just about every stray or orphaned animal they found my reactions to them became less and less untill completely gone. At one point our house was like a petting zoo with all kinds of animals we were nursing back to health and/or rasing. The family doctor was very interested in what happened with me. At that time they were conducting a study into the theory of prolanged exposure to allergens can can help lessen or completely remove the allergic reactions. After that my parents started sending me to summer camp and again guess what? After the first 2 summers my allergic reactions to pollen were gone as well. Dust still makes me prey for death but that is the only allergy I haven't been able to shake. So yeah it's my own personal exp but I have spoken with MANY people with similar exp. Now my younger brother was not so lucky. He got the same exposure as I did but his allergies never went away. But they did decline noticably during the zoo period or our lives. But that only lasted until we left home. They have in fact gotten stronger over the years. So who knows. There needs to be more study done on this but I know in my case exposure did seem to cure me of most of my allergies.
You'll have a much harder time even dealing with being sick. I used to clean house for a student optometrist with two kids. She made her kids change clothes four or five times a day, wash the second they even got dirty, and I swear they must've taken four or five baths a day. We were only allowed to use Lysol, Pine Sol, Alcohol, and Acetone for cleaning around her house. She wanted it "STERILE." I told her her kids would grow up having problems. Guess what? The elest isn't even 5 years old now, and he's got practically NO immune system - he's stuck in a bubble now, most likely due to her insisting upon everything being 100% sterile.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I read this in a recent issue of Science News but the link is only reachable by subscibers (20060610 issue). Here's another link: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=1993859.
Sure it does not erradicate arlegies, and in your case it seems clear that you've got them running on your family. But here it is common sense that children that were raised with animal pets have less alergies then children that had not. Some children doctors do adivise that the over sanitary environments that some mother want is bad, they even have a common joke for this. This doctors would sugest that the child need victamin "S" for "sujeira" witch is dirt in portuguese.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
When I first started highschool I had to start waking up at six in the morning rather than sleeping in. The first half of that school year was hell - I had the same flu three times in a row, I just couldn't fight it off. I caught every virus I was exposed to. I even started having problems with some foods. Things got better as my body got more used to the sleep cycle.
You mean this study? It seems to say tobacco smoke is a Class A carcinogen. Apparently, only 160,440 people in the USA died of lung cancer last year though. That means that 1.8% of all deaths from lung cancer are directly caused by second hand smoke. Then there are the 35,000 to 40,000 deaths per year from heart disease due to second-hand smoke. Of course, if you're willing to murder 3000 people per year for a habit, what's another few thousand?