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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?"
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?)
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.