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Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child
Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."
It could be that the process of cleansing is itself stressful to the skin when carried to excess.
Or it could be that the skin germs do a good job of "crowding out" the bad germs by hogging all the skin.
For years it's been known that kids from third world countries usually don't suffer from auto-immune diseases and things akin because of the sickly environment they are exposed too. It's simple, if you live constantly with the risk of infection your body will build up a stronger immune system than someone who lives in a bubble.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
...is the natural way of walking.
My kid must be immortal!
My mother told me this 20 years ago, this is like household wisdom.
Same basic theme as the "hygeine hypothesis" that exposure to soil bacteria plays an important role in causing the immune system to deemphasize inflammatory responses and rely more on cell-mediated immunity. In particular, it's been invoked to account for ectopic disease and asthma.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
And the corollary is... a dirty old man is a healthy old man.
This is why I plan on mounting mirrors and/or cameras on both my cane and my shoetips.
This is why, as an old man, I will take a volunteer job on a college campus somewhere in Florida.
This is why, as an old man, I plan to be a huge supporter of high school sports, standing on the sidelines with my hands in my pockets.
I don't want to die, and if being a dirty old man is what it takes, then so be it.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
A friend of mine teaches at a primary school. She has noticed the kids from the "bad side" of town may have other problems but bizarre allergies aren't one of them. In contrast, the kids with nut allergies, pollen allergies, etc. are the ones from upper class neighborhoods with an obsessive focus on cleanliness - they get sent to school with little bottles of purell in their knapsacks.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Because of this, I will continue to not wash my hands, ever.
Of course nobody listened to me, and I doubt anyone will listen to this study either. They'll just keep cleaning their kid.
Likewise exposing your kid to lots of allergens (like pollen, grass, et cetera) can prevent allergies as the body learns to ignore these things. Even in adulthood the body can be "trained" to allergens through frequent exposure.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
What else can we do to rid ourselves of the helicopter parent phenomenon?
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Geez! I have always said that in order to keep the immune and other systems working, they have to be used and worked. HOWEVER, it would also be stupid to overdo it as well. Keeping one's immune system overly burdened and busy could possibly cause some other sort of breakdown or failure just as the systems in the body that process sugars tend to break when overloaded. We call that diabetes don't we?
So yes, don't keep the kids sterilized. But don't immerse them in crap either. That's just stupid.
(A) dirty ___(fill in blank)___ is (a) healthy ___(fill in blank)___.
Any others?
Have gnu, will travel.
These bacteria "eat" something... and they excrete something too... maybe one of these has something to do with it?
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
George Carlin said it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s
. . . front porch.
When I dump it on those damn kids, they get off my lawn, without me saying a word . . .
. . . and I'm doing something good for their health.
Hey, maybe this a good idea for the new government health plan.
Lady: "Doctor, my kid needs antibiotics!"
Doctor: "Sorry, lady . . . have some mud."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
*cough* swine flu *cough*
Just a week or two ago, that was the subject of the tv show House. Hooray for science following up on the media!
It is good to see some additional research confirming the hypothesis that too clean an environment is hazardous for the health of kids.
Strikes again!
Booger eating seems almost universal in young children (and others). The upper airways are the first line of defense in our immune systems. There may be some biological impetus. It would be interesting to see studies that measure the frequency of colds and infection in frequent booger eaters. Someone else may have already proposed this hypothesis, but I have arrived at it independently. Does anyone know of any studies?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Human beings are well adapted to most common bacteria, adjusting immune responses to a ancient equalibrium created by evolution. The problem is that we haven't had time to adapt to antibacterial soap, everything we eat carefully sanitized, and constant cleanliness.
I'm increasingly convinced that a healthy diet reflects eating habits established tens of thousands of years ago.
Leave it to scientists to come up with a study to prove common sense
I'm not a "dirty" person, but I also don't wash my hands all the time (of course I do after taking a crap, but thats a bit different).
Antibacterial soaps have only landed us in more trouble, since the bacteria left are resistant to them. I do like the idea of the new alcohol based cleaners though, since they aren't antibacterial.
I don't stress out about making sure my pork is cooked all the way through, I don't scrub down my kitchen with bleach every day, and I also never get sick.
Compare this to others I know that are neat freaks, and tend to get really sick a few times a year and seem to get horribly sick every time they eat something a bit off. I've eaten the same shitty chinese food or tacos as someone else and while they were getting violently ill and had the shits for a few days, I didn't feel a thing.
I don't know about other parts of the world, but in Australia, hospital-grade disinfectants are available for household use, which is just idiotic unless typhoid has struck recently. We are breeding some very hardy germs while rooting our immune systems.
So how long until some clown patents getting muddy?
They'll be selling us carefully crafted biologically active dirt before too long.
This reminds me of when somebody discovered that a lot of the extra mobility you find in elderly Japanese people compared to Americans could be attributed to their frequent walks outside on uneven surfaces. Being the silly fools that we are, American medicine's answer wasn't the obvious "take walks outside."
No. Somebody invented a stupid mat with fake plastic cobblestones on top of it. Now old people get to walk back and forth on a 3 foot mat in the comfort of their own homes instead of - you know - taking a damn walk.
Are Americans so useless that given the news that taking walks is good for us we would prefer to walk back and forth on this abomination? It's probably so that they can more comfortably eat Cheesy Blasters and watch reality TV while they get their "exercise."
Reality. Who needs it?
Porquoi?
Speaking as a 35 year old who regularly played in the dirt during my childhood, I'd have to anecdotally agree with this study. As and adult, I get sick about once ever four or five years.
However, much like sports training or academic studying, work + rest = results. Anyone who trains without rest will eventually over-train and become weaker. The same can be applied to studying, and most likely the the immune system.
Being exposed to mud may be good for the immune system, but I suspect being filthy 24 hours a day isn't. Let your child get as muddy as he/she wants to be, but at the end of the day, clean up and get a good night's rest to allow the body to repair and build.
It could be that the process of cleansing is itself stressful to the skin when carried to excess.
Yes, indeed. Specially dry skin in winter can be associated with way too much cleaning.
1 shower a day is good (*).
washing hands every 10 minute interval during the whole day is not.
(*) unless combination of factors like hard water, and sensitive skin, in which case even a single daily shower would require using body milk or something similar.
Or it could be that the skin germs do a good job of "crowding out" the bad germs by hogging all the skin.
Yes, indeed.
It's one of the reason people can catch secondary infection (from fungi like Candida) when exposed to too broad antibiotics.
And we could add a third cause :
- Exposition to bacteria => Immune system makes antibodies => Therefore body has a stockpile of antibody (called "memory cells") to choose from in case of actual bacterial infection.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Computer nerds have a stereotype of not showering (as often as they should). Finally, we can feel free to live better through living funky. :D
What? Am I the only one here who fits this stereotype?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
It is suddenly clear to me: My mother wanted me dead!
I was tempered in raw sewage!
Also another related advantage :
It might get the kid exposed to parasite.
Not only does the kid get preventive antibodies ready to be used in case of real parasites invasion (just like with bacteria as in the above explanation), it might as well diminish risks of allergy.
As far as the hypothesis goes :
- People exposed to parasite :
100% of them make adapted anti-bodies (IgE) and prepares mast-cells, ready to use in case of real parasite invasion.
- People never exposed to parasite :
In most of people :
nothing happens, the part of the immune system responsible for parasite response (IgE antibodies and mast cells) just sits idle.
No allergy happens.
In unlucky people with genetic predispositions :
out of "bordom" is it doesn't have anything else to do, the system start to attack random mostly innocent stuff, which are just mildly irritating but have nothing to do with actual parasites.
The body creates IgE targeted toward food or to animals' saliva, and has mast-call equipped against that.
Unlike a real parasite (which is an animal, and thus can only exist in a single point of the body - well, ok : unless it's two specimen, in which case they are in 2 points, but you got the main idea), the target substance is soluble or is a liquide and can diffuse across the whole body.
Thus the Mast-cell don't react only locally at the single point(s) where the paraiste(s) is/are, but react everywhere in the body, creating systemic symptoms => allergic reactions.
This might get really dangerous, because the whole parasite reaction cascade (like dilating blood vessel and lowering blood-pression) was never designed to happen everywhere at the same time => anaphylaxis.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Oh Em Gee! A disease that so far has killed around 8 000 people WORLDWIDE is going to make the world go under! It might even kill as many as 20 000! ... Like, seriously, what the hell. 20k is a drop in the ocean. With those statistics, you're more likely to die in a traffic accident (~100 000 deaths a year, in the US alone), cancer (~500 000 deaths - in the US alone) or heartattacks (~450 000 deaths in the US alone) than in the Swine flu.
Death sucks, being sick sucks as well. But let's face it - The swine flu, as far as health hazards go, is mostly overrated.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
I've bitten my fingernails since I can remember. And I very rarely get ill, before even reading this article. I justified my biting as training my immune system to be stronger. Guess I was right?
it's not really as deadly (very seldomly deadly actually) to healthy people as a normal flu but it's easier to contract.
Likewise exposing your kid to lots of allergens (like pollen, grass, et cetera) can prevent allergies as the body learns to ignore these things.
Other hypothesis are that it's the exposition to *parasites* that keeps the IgE/mast-cell system busy as it was intended in the first place.
This avoids that it starts attacking harmless stuff like food or animal secretion, in unlucky people which have a genetic predisposition to allergies (i.e: hyperactive immune system which gets easily bored and which can't stand staying idle)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This has been a known fact for years. I remember a story back when I was a kid about a mother wanting to sue a doctor for telling her to let her son get dirty. She was a neat freak and wouldn't let her son play outside because he would get dirty. When the son kept getting sick, she took him to the doctor to find out why. She said she was shocked when the doctor told her to let her son play outside in the dirt and mud. The doctor won the case because his reasoning was sound and proper. The son needed to get dirty for the reasons stated in the article plus he also needed fresh air and exercise.
Now if this was know at least 38 years ago, why is a college spending money on research of already known facts now?
I think this has been fairly well known for years and everyone believes it except OCD hand-washers and nurses (seriously, I don't know what they teach in nursing school, but every nurse I've ever met was a freak about cleanliness). This is the same reason I don't take flu-vaccines because getting the flu does the same damn thing. It'll just mutate and my immune system will have to figure out a way to fight the mutated virus, so vaccines do no good (note: flu vaccines, not vaccines for polio or measles, I'm not an anti-vaccine freak, I'm just against unnecessary ones). I understand cleaning your kids, but they shouldn't be conditioned to fear dirt.
Also, on a related note, anti-bacterial soap is bad.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
But let's face it - The swine flu, as far as health hazards go, is mostly overrated.
This time. Sooner or later one like 1918 will come around.
I find the more bugs I introduce at the start of the project, the better the users are at dealing with bugs later on...
Unexpect the expected!
The top scientist is R Gallo at the Dept of Dermatology, Univ California San Diego. I couldn't find a mention on his web site, but the link below lists all his pubished papers.
From the abstracts, I would speculate that the idea is something like this
the normal skin bacteria - the microflora - secrete various antimicrobials peptides, that is compounds which are toxic to other bacteria. If you wash to much, you don't have the right peptides on your skin. at th bottom is an abstract from a recent paper
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=search&db=pubmed&term=Gallo%20RL
from this, the following article appears to have the clearest abstract:
J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2009 Sep;124(3 Suppl 2):R13-8.
Antimicrobial peptides and the skin immune defense system.
Schauber J, Gallo RL.
Department of Dermatology and Allergology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
Our skin is constantly challenged by microbes but is rarely infected. Cutaneous production of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) is a primary system for protection, and expression of some AMPs further increases in response to microbial invasion. Cathelicidins are unique AMPs that protect the skin through 2 distinct pathways: (1) direct antimicrobial activity and (2) initiation of a host response resulting in cytokine release, inflammation, angiogenesis, and reepithelialization. Cathelicidin dysfunction emerges as a central factor in the pathogenesis of several cutaneous diseases, including atopic dermatitis, in which cathelicidin is suppressed; rosacea, in which cathelicidin peptides are abnormally processed to forms that induce inflammation; and psoriasis, in which cathelicidin peptide converts self-DNA to a potent stimulus in an autoinflammatory cascade. Recent work identified vitamin D3 as a major factor involved in the regulation of cathelicidin. Therapies targeting control of cathelicidin and other AMPs might provide new approaches in the management of infectious and inflammatory skin diseases.
PMID: 19720207 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
an article of interest
J Invest Dermatol. 2009 Aug 27. [Epub ahead of print]
Selective Antimicrobial Action Is Provided by Phenol-Soluble Modulins Derived from Staphylococcus epidermidis, a Normal Resident of the Skin.
Annual traffic deaths in the US are about 40,000 a year, including pedestrians, and trending down. 2008 is the first year to break under 40,000. 1950s, 1960s, the annual rate was about 55,000. Thank improved technology and (maybe) increased social disdain of drunken driving.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
What does not kill me, makes me stronger.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Another health disadvantage of frequent washing is that it reduces the formation of vitamin D. Skin exudes oils, sunshine converts some components of the oils to vitamin D, and the vitamin is absorbed back into the body. If you wash frequently, you eliminate the oils that the vitamin D is made from and any of the vitamin still on the surface. Furthermore, the oils might have some sunblock activity (but I'm only guessing).
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
When I was a kid and even into my teens I rarely was ever clean during the day. I just assumed dirt was a part of life.. I showered/bathed regularly but did not clean up all day long. I was seriously in the running for a pigpen award because I was always dirty.
I'm 43 and I've had one antibiotic in my life and it was in the last year. I don't harass my kids to stay clean just to keep the dirt mostly outside hehe. I do believe it's important as you are young to be exposed to the elements and interact with them. I'm in an area where Valley Fever "Coccidioidomycosis" is a serious problem yet no one in my family has ever had it. My dad was a farmer/ranch hand and we lived and breathed dirt. Even into my 30's I ran graders/loaders etc with open cabs.
I miss about 2 days annually with a cold or flu because when I do get sick it hits me hard. My body heals fast I've had numerous open wound injuries and never had any issues with infection. So yea. Let your kids loose let them get filthy. It won't hurt em and it will likely strengthen their immune system.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
Who else was turned on a little by pig girl...
Come on, you know you were.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Well, that may be all well and good for kids sitting in the sanitized play yards of the west, but I don't see this as good news for the tens of thousands of kids who die of diarrhea in Nepal each year. But then again, overwashing is not an issue here. Finding a bar of soap is.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
I remember eating dirt when I was a child, and my brothers too. When I was a little older, I asked my Mom (an RN) why she let us eat dirt. She said "A little dirt is good for you sweetie, just don't swallow the rocks." I thought that was funny, because I thought "everyone knows you don't actually eat the rocks". Similarly, she was a firm believer that people who went barefoot (outside, not in urban areas) had healthier feet and stronger backs. Out of her 4 children we had no asthma, food allergies, auto-immune problems, etc. We are all healthy and strong. In fact, due to a military mix-up in vaccinations, I wasn't properly protected against the measles and caught the german measles in my late teens. Rode it out with no trouble except a high fever and a few spots. Doctors were shocked at how well my system handled the disease and my parents had to actually impose restrictions to keep me from heading out to participate in my favorite sports. Thanks for not making us afraid to get a little dirty Mom, you rock.
Do people really think the human immune system is magic? It needs exercise and practice just like any other part of the body to be effective.
Not to say we should start rolling in our own bodily waste, but a little dirt really never hurt anyone. Except maybe a burn victim.
Cause it was a House episode allready.
I would like to point out that I have very dry skin as well, but what I figured out is that it is a factor of actual hydration, as I am normally very active, I need to drink lots of fluids (I say fluids because I'm a gatorade in my camelback nut) but more important is that showers really really REALLY hurt your skin, especially when you like em long and hot. I forced myself to learn to love cold showers, and now my skin is much better. Also, since I'm active and am frequently outdoors, its not a problem for me, but exposure to sunlight everyday is very important as well.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Unless you were making an allusion to Windows 2000, Built on NT* Technology.
*NT = New Technology
Don't consider marring this hypochondriac and having children with her. She'll pass that insanity onto the kids.
Find a healthy girlfriend.
*cough* swine flu *cough*
With all that coughing, I hope you're using your purell!
The immune system functions best when exposed to something akin to the ancestral evolutionary environment? Well shave my beard and call me normal!
Now wash your hands.
I'm a filthily dirty person. Time to creep you out:
I haven't washed my hands after going to the bathroom for as long as I could remember (unless I actively shit on them... never happened). I don't use a tissue, just my sleeve. I haven't brushed my teeth in months. I have about 2-3 showers a week. Frequently, I'll reuse clothes. If some food falls on the floor, and the floor looks clean, in it goes. Wash my hands before eating, or after taking the subway? Never.
I haven't been sick (actually sick - not just feeling like shit for a day or so) in more than 8 years. I used to have athsma and pollen allergies - they've simply disappeared. My entire dorm had swine flu, I didn't even feel bad. I don't get cavities, even though my parents are cavity-prone.
In short, my immune system is constantly barraged. It's too damn busy to freak out about some pollen or peanuts. Yes, I should tone it back - and I am (having a girlfriend helps). But I won't be Purell-ing my hands all the time, and I probably won't even wash my hands after the toilet (though I am brushing my teeth - again, girlfriend). I'm just not that guy.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I was brought up with the ethos that germs are nothing to be afraid of, so was my wife. We continued this with our kids, they played around outside etc etc. Unfortunately our 3 day old baby contracted a virus, probably from her sister (who attends daycare), and almost died. Naturally, we searched for some clue about how this could have been prevented - the doctors shrugged and said 'well it's a virus, its everywhere, not much you can do - its just bad luck'. I was completely blown away by this - I'm a careful, safety-conscious parent who thought that not dipping our kids in dettol every ten minutes would be a good thing. Ironically, the kind of hygiene procedures that everyone here is deploring as excessive would possibly have meant my daughter could now have a full and normal life. I'm just presenting a different side of the argument, that's all.
Why isn't this from the stating the obvious department ?
~/ One man's opinions is a lifetime of pain.
And this is news because...?
I mean its pretty straightforward that in order to have a healthy immune system you have to come in contact with dirt, bacteria, fungus, and (virus?).
Whoever says otherwise fails at common sense. It's the same with those anti-vaccination folks. They are against vaccination but when their child get polio they blame the medicine.
As the son of a biologist, this it was always clear in our family. I found it crazy to shower twice a day, and then apply a lotion, just so your skin does not turn into paper. Even in the winter. Especially as a child, when you don’t smell or sweat much.
Of course the second part of child health is healthy food. Fresh (or frozen) and as un-processed as possible.
Independently from the immune system, using all those “hygiene” products is like taking drugs (be it illegal or pharma ones) or wearing glasses: The more you use them, the more your body will have trouble without them. They advertise with giving you the things, that they took from you in the first place.
It always reminds me of that child in the (mediocre) TV series “Earth 2”, that was so “protected” that it nearly died when it came in contact with the normal germs that everybody has on/in him.
Or “Bubble Boy”. ^^
Also, how are you going to build a normal digestive fauna, without any germs? A lack of it will not only cause bad digestion, but change your mood in negative ways. Especially if a bad germ gets to be the first to settle down there. (There are germs known to have massive changes on a person’s character.) You need to have a dense settlement of good germs, so bad ones can’t settle down anymore.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
You will see that with the increase in child-seat usage there is a sharp decline in child injuries, explain that away then sherlock?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Sorry if I may sound a bit rude, but some need to RTFA. This is about the skin and how it heals itself. It has nothing to do with allergies or auto-immune diseases. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
There has actually been done research on the fact of being too clean impairs your immune system. So far the result says it does not. The only link they found to allergies were the chemicals. So in other words, it could be as sterile as you want and that is not the cause of an allergy or auto-immune disease. They have also found no link between dirty kids and their resistance to flues and such that is claimed.
What we do know about the immune system is that it is passed on to you through your genes. So how well your immune system is has more to do with your genes than your environment.
There is also a link between poor immune system and being born through a c-section.
I can also add that the country with the highest rate of IBS is Mexico; not a industrialised country that is extremely focused on being clean clean clean.
This article is assuming causality ('too clean' -> allergy) where there is some evidence of correlation at best. How about confounding variables? I can come up with a number of equally plausible explanations, eg the difference in diet between between industrialised countries (too much food, bad quality food full of chemicals and hormones) and non-industrialised countries? I grew up in rural Russia - have not really heard of allergies until moved to the west. To this day people there go to the forest to pick mushrooms/berries etc. but less so than when I was a boy. Outside main cities lots of people have what is called 'dacha' where many grow their own fruit and veg. Again less so than how it was when I was a boy. And there are considerably more people with allergies now, including of some of my close relatives.
Or here is another one- air and water pollution. Here is some empirical prove: Donbass used to be an industrial powerhouse of Soviet Union and it was one the most polluted places I've ever been to. I don't want to make sweeping generalisations but I visited my relatives there when I was a kid and believe me the locals (mostly miners and factory workers) had little resemblance with the 'clean type' described by the article. I know lots of people there suffered from astma in those days.
Also, there is no doubt in my mind it's good for kids to play outdoors, close to the nature - for many reasons. However I leave in the UK and just about any even remotely like 'wild' outdoors here is contaminated with dog shit - you literally can't walk around the woods without steeping into one. Yes, there is Scotland and Wales - but that's not where most of the people are. There is also your own garden - good if you can afford a big one for your children to go wild. You also can take your kids to the park where can walk around with you (boring!) or play in designated places games that local council pre-planned for them (boring!). If you want to do what the article suggests you are on your own - dealing with the dog shit, which I doubt anyone would claim is good for kids.
Can we get this as a car analogy?
Fellow geeks! We're save!
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Well, I guess I could make a comment about how dirty kids really are......... ...Paul psalm 13.5
but I don't want to give the wrong impression,
instead I will site a passage from the bible
"And though the children were dirty and stained of earth, they wore the
clothes of the lord none the less..."
or something like that : P
jk
Washing less often, with the concomitant increase in bodily bacteria, is also a proven effective means for repelling members of the opposite sex, thus reducing the incidence of exposure to cooties and other STDs.
Interestingly you might raise the point that antibodies are only good for specific strains of viruses/bacteria.
On the other hand I didn't know that general immune system activity increases the chances of developing antibodies for various viruses.
Oh well.
were designed by natural selection and evolution.
Jury-rigged would be more appropriate given the way evolution works.
...Well, that, or the intelligent designer should quit drinking, smoking pot and getting high on acid, all the three at the same time, when inventing new designs.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If you work out every day {...} then daily showers are good. If you sit on your ass all day (and you don't have a condition that makes you sweat profusely), daily showers are overkill and may do more harm than good.
Well, in these situations you have other much worse problems to worry about than dry skin, body odours and optimal number of showers.
Namely obesity, bad cardiovascular adaptability, and all other pathologies associated with an overly sedentary life.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Humans evolved in a particular environmental context. While this was dynamic, it was nothing like the societies we have "recently" created. I agree that there really isn't an "unnatural way", but our bodies didn't evolve in the presents of (for example) Twinkies and all their wonderful chemicals. So it's unclear if we are currently adapted to handle the world as we've shaped it. Only time will tell. Oh by the way, Gorillas don't eat chimps, they're vegetarians (for the most part). And while I agree that tool building was a vital part our of evolutionary path, mechanization is a relatively recent invention. So yes, doing the things we do isn't "unnatural" but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good for us either!
This isn't news.
I am not devoid of humor.
So, you caught it? You have a nasty cough there...
On a related note, getting ill also strengthens the immune system. If you don't die, that is.
I am not devoid of humor.
I had a friend in high school who was raised on the most organic diet and kept fairly sheltered from most 'sick' related living habits (home-schooled, temperate climate, lots of chemical sanitizer / antibacterial use, etc. Now we're in our late 20's / early 30's, and he's sick (cold, flue, etc) at least 6 months out of every year. His digestive system gives him problems if anything is too spicy or citrus-like and he has troubles breathing 'urban air'. I've been proposing this fact to my peers since we graduated high school, but of course my claims have done nothing but ostricized me socially; doh!
That's a great hypothesis, but actual studies and measurements of bacteria in people's crotch areas doesn't support it, unfortunately. Your hands generally have far more bacteria than your crotch.
Politas