Slashdot Mirror
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.
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."
Except the limits that kept that diet workable aren't in place any more. First of all, if you're an average citizen of an industrialized nation, you can easily obtain far more food than you require without exerting significant physical effort. That's different from only eating what you can catch and/or collect. Second, you probably expect to live a lot longer than your distant ancestors. You are therefore susceptible to a lot of consequences of malnutrition or obesity that an ancient hunter/gatherer would never survive long enough to face.
For some people, the limit of "satisfaction" is probably ok. For others, it doesn't work.