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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."
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?
Or the ones susceptible to auto-immune diseases die at such a young age that they are never counted or seen in the data.
. . . 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!
It also seems like common sense too. Makes sense to me that out bodies would have evolved to cope with whatever 'dirt' we were normally exposed to. Homo Sapiens did not come about in a time where everything was wiped with detol before use. It disgusts me how many TV ads there are now telling mothers they need to disinfect absolutely everything in their homes. Kids are filthy, that's how they're supposed to be!
Seems to work for adults too -- I live in a dirty student flat that gets cleaned about once a year, and we are all sick much less often than our 'civilised' friends. There you go, an anecdote, it must be true!
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.
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.
I practically never get sick and I have no known allergies. As a child, I dug in mud, I explored forests, I ate earth and worms and all kinds of crap. Perhaps that's the reason.
So did I - spent time in the local woods, swam in the lakes, jumped in every muddy puddle to be seen, played out in the rain, and whatnot. I'm still allergic to cats, some detergents, and natural rubber (latex, avocado). This was in the mid 70s, and people had allergies then just like today. It's just the bar was much higher and people didn't really consider it an allergy unless they were likely to go into shock or develop serious symptoms. A little spring sniffle caused by pollen wasn't really hay fever unless it caused breathing difficulties or made your eyes puff up so bad you couldn't see. Anything else just wasn't bothered with and parents would tell their kids, "yeah it's just a little spring pollen, now go to school."
seriously, I don't know what they teach in nursing school, but every nurse I've ever met was a freak about cleanliness
What they teach them is that getting microbes into the insides of a person is much more likely to kill someone than make them stronger. And they're right.
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.
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Urine is usually pretty clean from a bacterial standpoint; you want to get it off your hands mostly because it smells bad and stains fabrics. (Rinsing is adequate.) But the whole crotch is damp and warm, an ideal place for the development of bacteria. Guys should clean their hands after urinating because they've touched an area rich in bacteria that like to live on humans, and spreading it to another person isn't very nice.
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Hear, hear! It's far too often left unsaid when people talk about the "epidemic" of allergies that the numbers might very well have changed a great deal because the category has become more inclusive. I wonder that about some other "spectrum" disorders as well...autism springs to mind. Are there more sufferers? Or by coming up with broader criteria for the category have we simply made the numbers get larger? I haven't seen (although I haven't exhaustively looked) a good analysis which addresses that factor.
Ok. I'm God. You can't prove that I'm not. And I say I had nothing to do with any of this. Therefore, I've proven that God had nothing to do with any of this.
Don't consider marring this hypochondriac and having children with her. She'll pass that insanity onto the kids.
Find a healthy girlfriend.
Believe is not subject to logical trumps.
Starch is a bad idea and will harm your immune system? Really? Even if you're trolling that's pretty bad.
I don't know what kind of starch you eat, but most of the rest of us eat something that decomposes primarily into glucose, the basic form of transportable chemical energy in most living things. As such most people would consider starch a basic foodstuff, and part of the staple diet, just as our ancestors have for hundreds of thousands of years.