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."

Comments

nt

[shentino]

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.

Re:nt

[jc42]

It could be that the process of cleansing is itself stressful to the skin when carried to excess.

This has been understood for at least several decades.

When I was in college, back in the late 60s and early 70s, a doctor diagnosed my dry, cracked skin and ongoing rashes as the result of too many showers. He recommended only one or two showers a week, with the qualification that any heavy exercise that produced sweating could probably be followed by a shower. I tried following his advice, and the problems cleared up. His explanation is that soap doesn't just clear away dirt and micro-organisms; it also removes surface skin cells and destroys oils, and this isn't too good for the skin.

This whole story is basically just reaffirming what has been understood in the medical community for a long time. As with most other biological topics, extremes in cleanliness aren't especially good for your health. You're better off being mostly clean, but with a small surface sprinkling of the sort of stuff that we evolved with. Soapy water does the same thing to your skin cells as it does to the bacteria. Your skin cells to have mechanisms (proteins) that bind them together, so they don't wash away all that easily. But your skin does succumb eventually to the same chemical attacks that remove the bacteria, if you hit it with too strong an attack.

Re:nt

[DJRumpy]

The article says specifically what they are referring to. From TFA:

"The San Diego-based team discovered that normal bacteria that live on the skin trigger a pathway that helps prevent inflammation when we get hurt.

These bugs dampen down overactive immune responses which can cause cuts and grazes to swell, or lead to rashes, according to research published in the online edition of Nature Medicine."

It is also a well known mechanism that is the primary method in vaccines, where the immune system is primed for something before hand so that it can recognize it later as a thread and respond accordingly. If someone is exposed to a lot of these viruses and bacteria at a young age, it follows that they might have a stronger or more rapid immune response later on.

Re:nt

[si618]

His explanation is that soap doesn't just clear away dirt and micro-organisms; it also removes surface skin cells and destroys oils, and this isn't too good for the skin.

Our son used to get skin problems (dry, rashes), we stopped using soap and just went with water and facecloth for shower or bath. Problems gone.

That being said, I work on infection control software and as a result am pretty fussy about washing hands after going to the toilet and before eating meals.

Re:nt

[c6gunner]

He recommended only one or two showers a week

Ah yes, the basement nerds favorite diagnosis. "I'm not a smelly slob, I have a medical condition!"

Re:nt

[jc42]

Ah yes, the basement nerds favorite diagnosis. "I'm not a smelly slob, I have a medical condition!"

Heh. Actually, that doc really didn't describe it as a "medical condition". He was more like "People take too many baths or showers these days; they don't really need to be that clean." And I'm not sure I really followed his advice exactly. I did a lot of swimming and generally had at least 3 showers a week to get the chlorine off. That just meant that I didn't have to bother showering back at the apartment, since I'd done it a few hours earlier at the pool.

He also made a point of saying that some people have oilier skin than others. The stereotype of greasy people with ancestors from certain parts of the world is semi-accurate, and is probably a reaction to a drying environment. In my case, with ancestors mostly from northern Europe, I have the typical dry skin of that climate, which is somewhat more sensitive to the effects of soap. But, as someone else here pointed out, you can also correct for that by not taking long, hot showers. The doc did comment that a shower lasting 10 minutes is long enough, and longer will just damage the skin. So I learned to take short, warm showers, which pretty much solved the problem.

But I can see some people having the typical over-reaction to studies like the article's. "OMG; scientists say we shouldn't ever get clean!" It might be fun to try to watch for people with this sort of reaction. Maybe make fun of them in public or something. I suppose the "basement nerds" could be a good place to start.

Re:nt

[Jesus_666]

You can shower daily but never forget to apply body lotion immediately after showering. If your skin is very dry, use lotion with urea in it. It's more expensive but really great against exsiccation dermatitis.

For most people, the skin produces oils fast enough to replace those lost through showering. For others, it doesn't. We get to use body lotion (switching to shower oil instead of shower gel is recommended, too, but I never quite liked shower oil). Oh, and bathing is a bit less damaging to the skin as you take some of your oils with you when you get out. Still doesn't keep you from having to apply lotion, though.

Re:nt

[TemporalBeing]

Not the GP didnt' say anything about hands...and while IANAMP (medical professional) I'd certainly agree with the GP and adding but wash your hands after using the bathroom and before eating; and keep them away from your eyes as much as possible.

Re:nt

[mldi]

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.

This reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons where Mr. Burns had every disease known to man... but they were crowding each other out, so none of them actually had an effect.

But no, that couldn't be farther from the truth. If your body doesn't know what's bad in the first place, it won't know later on, or even worse it might turn on itself because it's all confused.

How is this news?

[XPeter]

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.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the ones susceptible to auto-immune diseases die at such a young age that they are never counted or seen in the data.

Re:How is this news?

[TheCarp]

I would expect that this would place a strong selective pressure on immune function. As such, I would think that you would expect the trend to continue in the children of families from such areas and transplanted them into a cleaner culture.

I also would expect that this is the sort of question a good study would ask, and attempt to select participants such that they would be able to remove such an effect from their data. (which is not to say they did, just that a proper study would try to do that)

-Steve

Re:How is this news?

[Spatial]

I also read about this years ago.

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.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thought of dirty brown people with poopy fingers scares me enough.

If that keeps you out of society, good.

Re:How is this news?

[Beardo the Bearded]

Get a Hep A shot.

Even your best white urban chef won't be washing his or her hands aseptically, and the rule for chefs is "if it's not bad enough to be in the hospital, it's not bed enough to miss work."

Re:How is this news?

[fredklein]

Wasn't this on last weeks House episode?

Re:How is this news?

[jcr]

I dug my share of holes in the yard too, but I still have allergies. I don't tend to get colds or flu very often, though. Maybe once in ten years.

-jcr

Re:How is this news?

[4D6963]

It was. The guy's immune system was dependant on parasitic worms in his stomach to keep his weak immune system on alert, or something like that. Yeah, not only not news but also explained in a popular drama series on TV.

Re:How is this news?

[snaz555]

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."

Re:How is this news?

[DirePickle]

Ditto. I played outside, dug in the dirt, went fishing, fought bathing. My allergies manifested before I even had a chance to do that stuff, though (I was ~two when I started getting allergy shots). Maybe I should blame my mom for not getting filthy enough.

Re:How is this news?

[eyrieowl]

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.

Re:How is this news?

[c6gunner]

As far as autism goes, the accepted explanation in the medical community is that the rates are increasing because the categories are being redefined to include more symptoms, and because more patients are being checked for it than in the past. It's only the anti-vaccine nutters who are latching on to they hypothesis that the actual incidence rates are going up.

Re:How is this news?

[Khyber]

We were tempered in raw shit! Damn right!

I still go slogging through sewers and water ditches. Gotta keep that immune system from getting bored and making antibodies against harmless shit like peanut butter!

Re:How is this news?

[indi0144]

>>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.

It's not even related to a harsh environment assuming you think 100.00% of the third world it's like elbonia. I was born very premature, very weak and with an immune system practically absent. My mother, who was raised in harsh conditions knew that the only think that would make me a decent immune system was letting me be a very dirty boy, against medical advise, she created "the country" inside our house in the middle of the city. The pediatrician even told my mom that if I even make it beyond 2 years, it was impossible for me have a normal childhood because interaction with other kids (bacteria, virus, fungi) would kill me. Mom said "meh" and 27 year after I'm the guy who have flu once in a year, no allergies, no skin conditions no nothing.

Let you kids be fucking pigs! they WILL thank you now and every day for the rest of their lives. Be warned, your kid would try to turn your basement into a nasty jungle past puberty and even beyond, untidy environment it's something you attach to psychologically from very early in life. Mi actual room it's so fucked up that some of the girls visiting here had to visit a dermatologist the next day (thats was my acid test for a girl btw), a glass of fresh milk it's fucked up in like 2 hours, a banana turns completely black in 12 hours :)

Yes, we brown people are fucking nasty tanks but don't mind us, mind your bubble kids of today.

Re:How is this news?

[X0563511]

I thought the peanut 'allergy' was because of a mishandling of a protein or enzyme, and wasn't a real allergy?

Re:How is this news?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I would expect that this would place a strong selective pressure on immune function. As such, I would think that you would expect the trend to continue in the children of families from such areas and transplanted them into a cleaner culture.

Which sounds like a great argument in favor of mail-order brides - if you want healthy kids, get yourself a dirty woman. Or something like that...

Re:How is this news?

[kripkenstein]

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.

Actually no, it isn't known. It is a hypothesis, the "hygiene theory". Such things are very hard to prove.

Speaking of proof, TFA actually seems to not be relevant to the hygiene theory at all: All it says is that staph on your skin now will reduce inflammation. It says nothing about being exposed to staph as a child helping you as an adult.

The hygiene hypothesis might be true - there are other lines of evidence supporting it. But, my points are that (1) it isn't a fact quite yet, and (2) TFA either doesn't support it, or is poor reporting.

Re:How is this news?

[Hurricane78]

Same as your dog’s immune system in his mouth still being better after eating spoiled meat and poo. ^^

The thing is: You can heal pretty much all of your auto-immune diseases, with the right diet. I’ve seen it myself. Really bad asthma? Gone. Not a trace left.
The trick were these rules:

1. As non-processed as possible. (Badness: 1. Preparation [as in: pure sugar], 2. conserve [includes all white flour products], 3. heated, 2. fermented [pickles, sauerkraut, beer, wine, cheese, yogurt, salami/ham, etc], 1. mechanically processed [no problems here], 0. unprocessed)
2. As few heated proteins (especially animal ones) as possible. (This is the main rule to become allergy-free. Non-heated and especially vegetable ones are OK, as you need them.)
3. As long carbohydrates as possible (short to long: dextrose, sugar, starch, fibers)
4. As few saturated fats as possible (But unsaturated ones are good and can be eaten in relatively big quantities.)
5. As much variation as possible.
6. Don’t forget psychology. It has to taste great and be possible without much work.

Re:How is this news?

[bhiestand]

I would expect that this would place a strong selective pressure on immune function. As such, I would think that you would expect the trend to continue in the children of families from such areas and transplanted them into a cleaner culture.

Which sounds like a great argument in favor of mail-order brides - if you want healthy kids, get yourself a dirty woman. Or something like that...

Sounds more like a good argument against marrying virgins :)

Re:How is this news?

[vegiVamp]

A possibility, however, several cases (dozens, I believe, if not more) have been well-documented of sex workers who have gained natural immunity from HIV. This is one of the current trails in the search for a vaccine, although apparently they lose the immunity after some time once they stop being regularly exposed.

Re:How is this news?

[TheCarp]

Well if and only if thats whats happening. Remember the original supposition was that kids with propensity for immune function problems die earlier in such cultures. If thats the case, then they wouldn't breed, and a selective pressure would be pretty obvious.

However, that was only someones hypothesis. I was merely stating what I would expect if that hypothesis is correct.

How that relates to your own values in terms of relationships and whether it would help justify filling the emptiness in your life with a mail order bride, well, thats your issue. Though, genetics would tend to make a case for mail order brides anyway. Diversity is a form of strength. So, I say, if its what your leaning towards, why not go for it?

I was happy enough to have met mine on myspace. Though she was local anyway, so no mail order was needed, which is good. Do you know what the shipping costs are on a 5'11 woman?

-Steve

Re:How is this news?

[CrackedButter]

ditto on the childhood experience, but i'm familiar with getting the sick.

Re:How is this news?

[Abcd1234]

Well, yes and no. My understanding of the current state of autism research is that it's believed that changes in diagnostic procedure and criteria explain some of the increase, but not all of it.

'course, either way, it sure as hell ain't vaccines.

Re:How is this news?

[Sandcastle]

I have identical twin boys, nearing 3 1/2 years old.

It's like a double control group, both with the same genes and the same upbringing, right down to nap times, food eaten (or at least offered) etc.

One has always been half a pound or so heavier, and very healthy other than some normal colds / croup from the bio-warfare that is daycare. His twin has eczema, asthma and hayfever. Growing out of it slowly, thank goodness.

There are both typical Aussie boys. Wrestle like bear cubs, couldn't keep them inside if you wanted to, covered in dirt and grass within 5 minutes of putting their shoes on (if you can convince them to) in the morning.

So there you go. It may all have an influence, but there's no single cause.

Re:How is this news?

[Khyber]

I'd be willing to bet there's a true peanut allergy and then a false one that seems to be an allergy but in fact is a deadly chain-reaction.

Re:How is this news?

[mldi]

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.

And who knows... you may have been allergic to more stuff if you hadn't. It won't completely eliminate those already genetically predisposed, but it certainly helps.

Wow, that's good news

[Anonymous Coward]

My kid must be immortal!

Re:Wow, that's good news

[Tubal-Cain]

It that one of them in the picture?

old news?

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother told me this 20 years ago, this is like household wisdom.

Re:old news?

[HBoar]

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!

Re:old news?

[Pyrion]

No shit. Largely same living conditions here, and getting sick usually amounts to seasonal flu once a year for me. Only reason that ends up happening is exposure to other sick people, usually the sort who swear by using disinfectants all the time as if it's supposed to help increase their chances of avoiding getting sick. I don't know how well that's working for them, but I do know that if I avoid them, my chances of avoiding getting sick go up.

Re:old news?

[chrisG23]

It seems to have been forgotten. I don't know if its because my parents immigrated from another country, but they have a different view on health than the average American. Growing up, medicine from the pharmacy was the last resort to treat anything, with some important exceptions.

If I had a headache, lay down, don't read or play a video game, go to sleep if you can, wait it out.

A stomach ache - Some toast and tea, and then see if you can go poopie.

Sore throat - My mom makes this stuff out of egg yolks, lemon and sugar. Maybe its a placebo. Also, every blue moone she would aslo give me a half shot or quarter shot of this high proof plum brandy/whiskey, "to kill the gems"

A cold - Hot tea, garlic toast, bedrest.

Chest congestion - Vicks vapor-rub type hing applied to my chest left on overnight.

When things were real bad, like being sick and not getting better, or having high fevers, then I would go to the doctor, get examined, and be given penicillin. Thats about the only thing I got regularly as a child.

Flash forward to adulthood. I am 30 now. I haven't been sick since I was 23 or 24, and before that it was some time in high school. I don't get seasonal flus. I don't get colds. I get a headache two or three times a year. I get a runny nose a few times a year (usually at the same time people are getting really sick with whatever is going around at the moment). I get sore throats and congestion, but I'm never sure if that is the cigarette smoking or something else.

All in all, for someone that does not live a particularly healthy lifestyle, I'm doing pretty damn good. Knock on wood.

One more thing, home cooked food was the norm, eating out was the exception. Soup almost every day. Lots of vegetables, lots of weird tasting/smelling vegetables. I'm also not allergic to anything that I know of.

Re:old news?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I don't get seasonal flus. I don't get colds. I get a headache two or three times a year. I get a runny nose a few times a year (usually at the same time people are getting really sick with whatever is going around at the moment). I get sore throats and congestion, but I'm never sure if that is the cigarette smoking or something else.

I was the same way until 6 month ago when I quit smoking. I thought that with my superior immune system, and new healthier lifestyle I was pretty much a lock to never get sick again.
Boy was I wrong! Since then I have had H1N1 that lasted 10 days, and something my doctor couldn't identify. (I called it the my sleeping sickness.) For 5 days I could not stay awake. I was sleeping 20+ hours a day.
My theory is that my immune system had gotten used to dealing with virus/bacteria that were swimming in nicotine, and many other toxic chemicals, and now it has to go up against these bugs at full strength.
I hope my below average immune system adjusts soon.

Re:old news?

[Urza9814]

Eh, it has nothing to do with where you're from. My family is pretty much the same way, and I'm at least a 4th generation American. We don't even own a themometer. My opinion is that your body hurts for a reason, and taking pills to mask the symptoms is only going to make you unaware when you're hurting it more. I caught the flu a couple weeks ago from my girlfriend, and the strongest medicine I used was some Asprin, and only because my joints were aching too much to sleep. Other than that I just took lots of tea, crackers, and juice.

And on the other end of the spectrum you have my girlfriend - the one who gave me the flu. She gets these extremely powerful antibiotics ('z-pak') prescribed for _anything_. Even just a light cold. She always says they must work, because it's a 5 day treatment and by the end of the 5 days she feels better. But of course, it's a cold. It's only gonna last 5 days anyway. She also takes three Motrin damn near every morning, and wakes up with a headache every other day. And she uses hand sanitizer several times a day. Basically, she's _always_ sick. She's the most fragile person I know. And her parents are the same way. I blame it on the fact that her family is very wealthy - like, her aunt is 'rent a private jet to fly up to Nantucket for a few weeks' wealthy. Her parents go to Hawaii every year. They could afford to watch their child constantly and enforce 'good hygiene' 24/7. And with their status in society they can't ever been seen as being dirty. Plus it's easy for them to get meds - they call up their good family friend and he calls in the order to the nearest pharmacy. It's just too easy for them to be super clean all the time and assume modern medicine can take care of anything. And ads for products like Purell and Lysol certainly don't help any.

Re:old news?

[CheeseTroll]

Do you have kids in school? That's the ticket to catching every bug that passes through town.

Re:old news?

[joocemann]

My mother told me this 20 years ago, this is like household wisdom.

You are correct, but without evidence, it has remained somewhat anecdotal. I know several parents who completely protect and shield their kids from everything and have wondered why they get sick so easy.... They didn't accept the anecdotal evidence, but maybe now they will accept the scientific evidence.

Re:old news?

[chrisG23]

Time to reconsider considering quitting smoking....

Re:old news?

[ajlitt]

What kind of irresponsible doctor writes your girlfriend a prescription for a Z-Pak with those symptoms?

Re:old news?

[zippthorne]

Wow, you've been healthy for your entire late 20s. Someone get a medical journal on the line.

Re:old news?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And ads for products like Purell and Lysol certainly don't help any.

Chuck Lorre (creator/writer for The Big Bang Theory and a bunch of other sitcoms like 2.5 Men, and amazingly a former scientologist) recently wrote that, "Purell is the new face of fear."

Re:old news?

[Ifandbut]

About the headaches; I get them more or less every day since high school (10 years or so now) and I got plenty dirty and lots of scrapes and cuts when I was a kid. I'll often wake up with a pounding headache and be unable to function till I take some Ibuprofen. I dont know what causes them. Went to a doctor a few years back and they did a MRI or something and found nothing. In fact, besides the headaches and a 3 day cold when the weather changes I don't really get sick at all.

Re:old news?

[Hurricane78]

Toast is a bad idea though. As it is nearly pure starch. Meaining it will frag your immune system even further. Healthy food is always a good idea.

That’s why it’s so horrible that the food at hospitals is so bad. It basically works strongly in favor of the disease.

But as I see that your mom made the food herself and had a great amount of variation in it, I can tell you that that was a biiig plus for your immune system. If you then concentrate on eating as little processed food as possible, you will grow old without any of those “age-related” diseases, that somehow turn out not be be age-related at all (but related to eating bad food for decades.) :)

Re:old news?

[Kharny]

if you snore a lot, you might have sleep apnea(spelling not sure).

Basically, an inability to breath correctly while sleeping, causing headaches due to oxigen deprivation.

Try sleeping with an extra pillow, or ask a doctor if you can test a breathing machine for a bit while sleeping.

Re:old news?

[sFurbo]

Doctor* "random guy on /." to the rescue:
How much coffee do you drink? Coffee contracts the blood vessels in the brain, and as the body gets used to it, their relaxed state becomes more dilated. Dilated blood vessels in the brain gives splitting headaches, so if you drink a lot of coffee, you will get headaches at times when it is a long time since your last cup, e.g. in the morning. It is explained in more detail in this podcast under "your questions".

*I'm not actually a doctor, and this is not medical advice.

Re:old news?

[sFurbo]

wakes up with a headache every other day.

How much coffee does she drink?
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1455726&cid=30224184

Re:old news?

[the_one(2)]

Dehydration perhaps?

Re:old news?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:old news?

[gsslay]

If this is old news then someone needs to tell the manufacturers of household cleaners, disinfectants and other related chemical crap.

If you ever watch the TV adverts, you can see why people might be confused. The message they give is that your CHILD is SURROUNDED by LETHAL GERMS putting them in MORTAL DANGER. The only solution to this, if you care at all about your child, is to have a house awash with antibacterial cleaners, so that every room is a bacterial killing field. Sterilise your living environment, repeatedly lest anything escapes. Douse the hard surfaces and spray the soft. The natural smell of any truly loving household is one of bleach and a cloying mixture of "pine-fresh" and "meadow-flowers". Otherwise you are an unfit parent and are complicit in your children's probable death in the most horrible of ways.

Manufacturer's want to sell their cleaners, and to do so they prey on people's ignorance and fear.

Re:old news?

[dzfoo]

>> Toast is a bad idea though. As it is nearly pure starch. Meaining it will frag your immune system even further

That's why it's a known fact that as soon as humans invented bread, they died out en masse and the species didn't survive.

Oh wait!

    -dZ.

Re:old news?

[Alsee]

The kind who treats people who fly in private jets, and who bill accordingly.

-

Re:old news?

[chrisG23]

This plum brandy I am thinking of is a Romanian thing, and also a Hungarian thing I am told. The romanian name is Pálinka. It sounds almost exactly like sljivovica. Its high proof liquor made from plums, usually made at home in someone's personal still, and aged in wood barrels. Lots of people make it, and everyone, EVERYONE, has a bottle of it in their home. And many people sip a shot of it (sip, not shoot) with lunch and dinner.

Re:old news?

[Coffee Warlord]

Mis-modded, fixing.

But, yes. Either the 1) filthy rich, or the 2) batshit crazy folks who will endlessly hound the doctor until it's easier for the doctor to just prescribe something.

Re:old news?

[operagost]

This one's even better:

Last weekend I went on a movie date with a very nice lady. During the coming attractions I managed to get a piece of popcorn down the wrong pipe. I started coughing. People nearby glanced at me nervously. Then, as the movie was about to begin, I got a tickle in my nose and sneezed. Twice. The young couple sitting to my left immediately got up and moved across the aisle. The old lady directly in front of me leapt to her feet and literally vaulted over her husband in order to sit further away from me. For some reason, I was a little miffed. But then I realized the newfound power I had. I got up, crossed closer to the old lady and young couple and coughed again. They all glared at me and once again moved their seats. The game was on! Maneuvering like a knight on a chess board, I countered their move by moving two rows down and one seat over. I looked at them. I smiled. I coughed. They were stunned. How could this be happening? How had their simple movie outing turned into an Edgar Allan Poe short story? But it had! In a matter of minutes, they had become Prince Prospero and his noble cohorts, while I, I had become the Red Death! The old woman covered her mouth and nose with her hand and cried out, "Why are you doing this to us?!" I laughed and said, "Why? You want to know why? Because death, my dear woman, is the inevitable end for us all! And there is no hiding from it. Even at the AMC!" A horrible silence hung over the theater, no one moved, no one breathed. Then the movie started and we all settled down to enjoy the whacky, 3-D antics of Jim Carrey. Oh, and I'm hoping to go out with the nice lady again, but she has not returned my calls.

Re:old news?

[steelfood]

He probably doesn't write the prescription for those symptoms. He probably just orders in bulk, and gives them to the family to use and distribute as needed.

And we wonder why superbugs are becoming more and more prevalent.

Re:old news?

[Troed]

She gets these extremely powerful antibiotics ('z-pak') prescribed for _anything_. Even just a light cold.

Someone should tell the doctor that colds are caused by viruses, and antibiotics only work against bacteria.

Or tell your GF at least.

Re:old news?

[Urza9814]

well i've tried telling her that, and she just replies that they must work, because after the 5 days her cold is gone....

Re:old news?

[Troed]

From the sound of it I guess you've already tried everything, but anyway ... ;)

http://www.azcentral.com/health/news/articles/1029health-antibiotics29-ON.html

Re:old news?

[Ifandbut]

I dont drink coffee (cant stand the taste unless I put 1/2 cup of sugar in it) however I do drink at least 2-3 cans of Mountain Dew a day and often I'm drinking them up to a hour before I go to bed (at which time I switch to drinking about 1/2 liter of water).

I'v tried to quit caffiene but the big proublem I run into is finding something else to drink instead. Gatorade is ok but I find I am more thirsty after drinking it. Water would be ideal but then my taste buds die from boredom. Regular juice is too acidic to drink more then a glass once in a while. Pop, on the other hand, has good flavor, it quenches my thirst, and it does not make my mouth burn after drinking alot of it (like juice does).

Re:old news?

[dryeo]

Friend of mine had headaches like this. Doctors couldn't figure them out.
Mentioned it to his Dentist who said it could be a grinding teeth in sleep problem (IIRC) and made him an insert to sleep with. Headaches went away.
The insert was somewhat expensive.

Re:old news?

[laddiebuck]

Plum brandy -- slivovitz, palinka? Your parents weren't Eastern European by any chance?

Re:old news?

[chrisG23]

Yes they were.

Re:old news?

[laddiebuck]

I'm Hungarian, it's definitely a Hungarian thing too. Palinka is actually the Hungarian name, but it's a Slavic loanword with us, from the Rumanian Palinca. We usually drink apricot palinka, but plum and pear are almost as popular. Elderberry is the one to die for (and elderberry juice).

Re:old news?

[mldi]

I don't get seasonal flus. I don't get colds. I get a headache two or three times a year. I get a runny nose a few times a year (usually at the same time people are getting really sick with whatever is going around at the moment). I get sore throats and congestion, but I'm never sure if that is the cigarette smoking or something else.

I was the same way until 6 month ago when I quit smoking. I thought that with my superior immune system, and new healthier lifestyle I was pretty much a lock to never get sick again. Boy was I wrong! Since then I have had H1N1 that lasted 10 days, and something my doctor couldn't identify. (I called it the my sleeping sickness.) For 5 days I could not stay awake. I was sleeping 20+ hours a day. My theory is that my immune system had gotten used to dealing with virus/bacteria that were swimming in nicotine, and many other toxic chemicals, and now it has to go up against these bugs at full strength. I hope my below average immune system adjusts soon.

LOL - may have just been really, really bad timing. I came down with the worst flu of my life, not H1N1, that lasted a couple weeks total as well. Most people I know came down with the same thing. Also got your "sleeping sickness", but mine only lasted a few days. Seriously, it was like a coma.

No change in life habits or anything like that though for me.

Score another for the hygeine hypothesis

[overshoot]

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.

Re:Score another for the hygeine hypothesis

[fermion]

What scares me is the rise in the use of sanitizing lotions and sprays. I believe the limited use of these to clean households and the like is what has caused the rise in allergies and relative decline in natural defenses Imagine what an entire generation raised with the constant killing of germs, beneficial and otherwise, is going to look like. They are going to have to live in freaking bubbles. We already can't have peanuts around because some maladapated child might die. What is next? Real vegetables because they cannot be sanitized of all naturally occurring bacteria? Itisnot that It want the kids to die, or even get really sick. It is that I think we can see what this fear based living is doing to us, and it would be nice to put some rational perspective in the argument. I mean, look at it this way. We know that car exhaust does kill us,and therefore any one with a family should drive low emission vehicles. But families often drive emission spouting SUVs believing they are 'safer',even though the kids breathe the fumes and get injured. Risk assesment is not the high skill of the average human.

Re:Score another for the hygeine hypothesis

[drinkypoo]

Using it to account for asthma is dumb because we have so many plausible, ready explanations for that already. Also, though in the "the plural of anecdote is not data" category, all the asthmatics *I* know had at least one smoker parent, and played in the dirt plenty as a child. Of course, I like the environmental irritant theory best; my mom smoked until she found out she was pregnant, good one mom, and my dad still smokes.

With that said, it has long been known that our bodies are colonized by bacteria and even little bugs. There's some little mite-looking critters at the base of your eyelashes, nobody knows what they are for but we all have them living in there. Very odd.

Re:Score another for the hygeine hypothesis

[operagost]

But families often drive emission spouting SUVs believing they are 'safer',even though the kids breathe the fumes and get injured.

We have minimum emissions standards in the US. SUVs emit fewer pollutants that your typical econobox of the 1980s, and your kids won't be directly breathing them unless you have some kind of rust hole in the floor.

Corollary

[Red Flayer]

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.

Re:Corollary

[commodore64_love]

>>>And the corollary is... a dirty old man is a healthy old man.

Yessir!!! The Dirty Old Man's Association is by far my favorite website. If only they'd add video. Oh well. (warning nudity) http://www.domai.com/

Re:Corollary

[steelfood]

It might be good for the heart, but only if you start young.

Anecdote time

[oldspewey]

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.

Re:Anecdote time

[Pyrion]

The only allergies I've got are due to genetics - I'm lactose-intolerant and gluten-intolerant (milk and wheat) due to my asian ancestry. I live in an environment that is saturated with dust and animal dander (of both the dog and cat variety) as well as molds and I don't have a problem with any of that. Pollen doesn't screw me up either. Seasonal flu once a year is about it.

Re:Anecdote time

[buswolley]

My mother was raised on a farm. Dirt. and more dirt. My mother has horrible and debilitating allergies. I counter your anecdotal with my anecdotal.

Re:Anecdote time

[cujo_1111]

I have had lactose intolerance for about 14 years now, I don't take any pills to control the symptoms. I mostly avoid lactose containing foods, but when I do indulge in something containing butter or milk, I know I have 2 hours to be near a toilet.

I do have milk on my breakfast cereal, but it has been pretreated with an enzyme to split the lactose into galactose. It comes in UHT form and it much sweeter tasting than normal milk (perfect for making custard). A company called Harvey Fresh here in Western Australia makes it and exports it to India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia..

Re:Anecdote time

[Farmer Tim]

I do have milk on my breakfast cereal, it has been pretreated with an enzyme to split the lactose into galactose.

Galactose...isn't he the Silver Surfer's boss? That's one badass breakfast!

Re:Anecdote time

[Zalminen]

There's also a theory that some allergies are caused by the lack of correct, beneficial bacteria in the digestive system. These (normally present) bacteria can get wiped out by heavy antibiotics, causing allergies.

I'm no scientist, but it sounds also reasonable...

Re:Anecdote time

[L4t3r4lu5]

My brother and I grew up in the same house, with the same parents, sharing the same toys, playing in the same trees, and eating the same food.

I have no allergies, nor do I get sick (the ongoing joke for me is "Sneeze once and it's dust, twice is a cold, three times is flu"). My brother has hayfever, asthma, allergy to peanuts, and is layed out by a chilly breeze in winter.

I support your anecdote; Environment can play a part, but is not the sole factor.

Re:Anecdote time

[IrquiM]

Sex farm? No wonder!

Re:Anecdote time

[m0rphin3]

My girlfriend's twin, as well. They reckon it's due to them getting different levels of nutrients in the womb.

Re:Anecdote time

[tsstahl]

Obviously your mom didn't walk uphill both ways anywhere. City farmer.

Re:Anecdote time

[sshir]

I'm not offending and surely not jocking: Your mother needs to get intestinal worms.

Re:Anecdote time

[L4t3r4lu5]

Your girlfriend has a twin? High five, bro. :D

Damn right!

[chaynlynk]

Because of this, I will continue to not wash my hands, ever.

Re:Damn right!

[HTH NE1]

"You really don't plan to shake my hand without washing yours first, do you?"
"I take offense to that; I assure you I keep a very clean penis."

Re:Damn right!

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Reminds me of a co-worker, back when I was cutting grass and digging ditches for a living. He'd always wash his hands before going to the bathroom, never after. I asked him about it once, he said, "I know where my dick's been all day, I can't say the same about my hands."

Re:Damn right!

[shadowbearer]

  I've been working part-time at a Salvation Army store for much of this year until I find another job in my field (which is apartment maintenance - y'know, fixing toilets, etc *g*) and I follow the same philosophy...

  I rarely get sick, but the grime one can get on one's hands sorting thru donations is pretty disgusting.

SB

Knew This For Years

[commodore64_love]

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.

Re:Knew This For Years

[gujo-odori]

My wife was born in Viet Nam and spent the first 30 years of her life there, and she's been saying that for years, too. She has an absolutely bulletproof immune system; she almost never gets sick, even when everyone around her has a cold, and on those rare occasions when she does, she shakes it off faster than anyone else. Her siblings are all the same way. She attributes this to the fact that there wasn't much vaccine (or knowledge of hygienic practice) in VN when she was a kid. Not much in the way of antibiotics, either, so you just had to get well on your own if you got sick.

Re:Knew This For Years

[rainmaestro]

I've always had the same reaction. As a kid, I had lots of issues. Rheumatic fever, asthma for many years, chicken pox, plenty of sick days.

As an adult, nothing. In the 8 years since I left home, I've had *one* sick day. I had three roommates at the time all flattened out for a week by a stomach flu. Three sick people, two bathrooms to throw up in. Toward the end, I had one queasy night, threw up once, and was out golfing the next morning.

I've always attributed it to the fact that I was exposed to so much stuff as a kid. Even the stuff that caused me asthma as a kid (talking "rush me to the hospital" asthma), nowadays it just makes my eyes dry (cat dander).

I've never been obsessed about germs. I hardly ever wash my hands, I don't shy away from people who sneeze and cough, etc. The body needs, to quote George Carlin, "germs to practice on".

Re:Knew This For Years

[Pyrion]

Yup. I used to be very allergic to long-haired cat dander. It'd set off an asthma attack (was diagnosed with asthma as a child, never used the inhaler, rarely ever had asthma attacks, nowadays it's only secondhand smoke that sets it off). The unintended incidental solution: several years of exposure to cats as pets, both short-haired and long-haired. I don't have a problem with them anymore.

Re:Knew This For Years

[Pyrion]

I have a friend who is the same way. Pretty much never gets sick. I've had the flu in his presence multiple times and he's never caught it. He chalks it up to his dirty lifestyle - he's an industrial construction worker who works on car and boat engines as his main hobby, so he's always outdoors, always getting dirty, always getting exposed to other people, and he never gets sick.

Though he still ends up visiting the hospital on occasion because he gets into accidents from stupid stunts more than most people should in their lives.

Re:Knew This For Years

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

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.

It's good that you've been saying this for years, but until you conduct some studies to prove it, most folks will probably still not listen to you on the subject...

Re:Knew This For Years

[Imrik]

Even after you conduct some studies to prove it most folks will still not listen to you.

Re:Knew This For Years

[mgcarley]

This seems to be a phenomenon of the English speaking world... and India (thanks UK nanny state mentality!)

I grew up in New Zealand. My mother is a registered nurse, but as kids my siblings and I always got things like Onions on our ears and Vicks on our chest.

The pills we took everyday were just Garlic Oil and Vitamin C. Yes, I got sick, but that's unavoidable as a child. We lived on a farm for part of my childhood.

My Year 7 (Age 11) at school was completely unmarred: I had exactly 0 days off school that year. The previous year I had had something that they couldn't diagnose (was it Bronchitis? Asthma? Whooping Cough? After 6 months it just went away anyway). The next year I my immune system attacked itself and I got some disease ("Rutilus offa" or something... translated from Latin to English as "Red Lumps"). That too went away by itself.

When I was 15 I worked as a "bottle-boy" at a pharmacy (basic cleaning up, making cups of coffee, running errands etc). I had 1 illness in the 18 months I worked there - which was treated with Vicks in hot water, breathed through a cloth in order to clear up my stuffy nose.

Having lived in France (where I worked in a hotel and most diseases came from people travelling the continent), Finland (didn't really get sick) and now India, actually the worst was India: but that was just my body getting used to the water, food and air.

Now I don't really have any problems, and most food I prepare myself. I occasionally get a stuffy nose but that's about it. The only thing is I mostly drink bottled water (but at US$1.50 for 20 litres, it's a bargain).

My Mrs (who is Indian) inherited from her mother an obsession with keeping everything clean and the maid washes down the apartment with Dettol DAILY. I would hate to think what would happen to them if a super-bug comes along. I find the more I make my own maid scrub down my house, the more unhealthy I feel.

To conclude, in a very roundabout way, I'm with George Carlin on this one too - not just because the man is a legend, but because of my own experience.

Re:Knew This For Years

[goose-incarnated]

Actually, even with proper studies, most people who practice bubble-living on their kids aren't going to change.

Re:Knew This For Years

[russotto]

Since it's nearly impossible (short of moving or living in a bubble) to avoid the allergens involved with hay fever, the theory that exposing oneself or one's children to those allergens to prevent allergies seems flawed to say the least. Nearly everyone with pollen allergies _is_ regularly exposed.

Re:Knew This For Years

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Valid point. Unless they're living in positive-pressure houses and never leaving, they really can't be avoided.

good

[SoupGuru]

What else can we do to rid ourselves of the helicopter parent phenomenon?

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

In a way it has been legislated that parents have to be helicopter parents. Example car seats. Car seats of are so much work and yet for children over 2, they are no better than seat belts. abcnews

So we need to stop believing(and legislating) everything about safety and health.

Re:good

[eviloverlordx]

Car seats of are so much work and yet for children over 2, they are no better than seat belts.

Well, until auto makers start designing cars with child-sized seatbelts, I'm afraid we're stuck with them. As a parent of a toddler with another child on the way, the amount of extra work a child seat represents is miniscule compared to trying to get a three year old to pay attention.

Re:good

[treeves]

IIRC [one of?] the authors of Freakonomics has pointed out that a study has shown that kids in car seats don't fare better in car crashes than kids in seat belts (the seat belts that exist already). Sorry, I don't have a citation.

Re:good

[dzfoo]

Surrender the kids to the nanny state?

Ugh, somehow I don't see the improvement.

      -dZ.

All things in balance!!!!

[erroneus]

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.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[RJFerret]

So yes, don't keep the kids sterilized. But don't immerse them in crap either. That's just stupid.

Actually, there was a report a few years ago showing children raised on farms were less prone to allergies than those raised in fertilizer-less environs.

Bring on the crap.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[Beardo the Bearded]

I have two kids in daycare and I bike to work. (Biking gets mud and puddle water on my face regularly.) I also SCUBA dive, and we don't treat our sewage here. (Primary screening, but no secondary treatment.)

I eat in pubs, work out at the Y, hardly ever wash out my water bottle, and I just licked my keyboard.

Mortal germs can't live in here.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[sowth]

Yes. Especially with food. HUS is caused by E. coli. Not good to have. It can cause kidney failure.

In fact, I suspect I may have had HUS as a kid. My parents were not very good about food safety and force fed me undercooked meat on a regular basis. I got food poisoning quite a bit. By the time I was six or so, I knew to avoid any meat which was pink inside, though my parents would insist I eat it anyway. Probably why I was physically weak as a teenager and adult. May have damaged my kidneys as well.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[erroneus]

I love rare meat. There is probably more to it than just that.

People think, for whatever reason, that being cold is the reason they would catch a cold...virus. They continue thinking so in spite of the common knowledge that one can catch a cold in 100+ degree temperatures in the day. Some things such as colder temperatures can and will put the body's systems under stress, but if you are reasonably healthy, you will likely be fine and be able to resist a cold virus.

With that said, meats that have been mishandled will tend to contain bacteria that could lead to food poisoning. Completely raw meat that has been handled carefully will never lead to food poisoning. In the past, the act of cooking food was a means to rid it of any infectious diseases or to otherwise make it edible. Today cooking still serves that purpose but is also something of an art form in which cooking with heat is varied and handled in a wide variety of ways. It is well known that sashimi meats from a variety of sources including beef is fairly common. My point is that it is actually the handling of the food that leads to problems with food and that proper handling can prevent many of the problems that cooking with heat are there to resolve.

I feel pretty sure that my discussion here will not change your mind as a great deal of your belief is based on illness and other bad experiences from childhood and those tend to run pretty deep in the psyche. (This is why it's pretty hard to convince most religious people that modern day religions are no different from any other and are especially similar to even the most silly sounding myths.) But since you are here on Slashdot, there is a pretty good chance you have a rational and logical core and will analyze the obvious facts before you.

With all that said, I am not suggesting you eat raw beef from a local grocery store. Some grocery stores have REALLY good meat departments.... others do not. You really have to know what you are getting into when it comes to meat -- it is still an extremely risky food when compared to others.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

My parents were not very good about food safety and force fed me undercooked meat on a regular basis.

Perhaps they were trying to get rid of you. Its just a thought.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[ceoyoyo]

"I love rare meat. There is probably more to it than just that."

It depends on the meat. Chicken has to be cooked thoroughly because salmonella can live in the meat. Steak is meant to be raw on the inside, but must be seared on the outside because some meat packer probably dropped the thing so e. coli could be living on the surface. Ground meat should be cooked through because some meat packer probably dropped it, ground it up (thoroughly mixing the bacteria in) and then dropped it again for good measure.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[deek]

My parents are Arabic, and one dish that is part of the cultural cuisine is Kibbeh Nayeh. It's basically raw lamb, ground up finely, and mixed with spices and crushed wheat. This is meat which has not touched a flame or hot plate. It's as raw as you can get.

There are whole communities that eat this dish, nay, whole countries. I've never heard of anyone suffering food poisoning from it.

I also have to say, I do like my steak with a little pink inside. Maybe not rare, but medium works well for me.

At the same time, I wouldn't touch semi-cooked chicken flesh with a long stick, much less with a fork and knife. Chicken has to be cooked well. I have suffered food poisoning from some chicken sandwiches from a caterer for some work function.

Re:All things in balance!!!!

[sowth]

Yes, the safety of food depends on a lot of things. Where it was raised, how fresh it is, what kind of animal, and so on. The food I was fed was certainly not safe though.

The General Case

[PPH]

(A) dirty ___(fill in blank)___ is (a) healthy ___(fill in blank)___.

1. sex
2. old man

Any others?

Dichotomy

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

• Clean mind
• Clean body
• Take your pick

Carlin

[rainmaestro]

George Carlin said it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s

Re:Carlin

[Derwood5555]

Soon as I saw this article, I thought of George and this routine. GMTA!! :)

This is why I keep buckets of mud on the . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . 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."

As Seen on TV

[alanjstr]

Just a week or two ago, that was the subject of the tv show House. Hooray for science following up on the media!

Re:As Seen on TV

[Dun Malg]

Science was already "there" for years before the dumbfucks who write for House even wrote that episode. Where do you think they got the idea, from doing medical research in their spare time? Those fucks are stupid enough to write a story where a "genius" continuously drinks fucking Robitussen to "make himself stupid", when anyone who's actually fairly inteligent and has drunk Robo "recreationally" knows it doesn't work like that. It's a partially debilitating semi-halucinogen, and does nothing to alleviate the "pain of genius" and make stupid people tolerable. You certainly couldn't function as a courier, for fuck's sake.

Re:As Seen on TV

[millennial]

Sit down, have a pint, chill out a bit. It'll all be okay.

Re:As Seen on TV

[MikeBabcock]

Wow, way to miss a point :-)

First off, going off on a fictional show: fail.

Secondly: you made his point, alanstr claimed science showed up in (popular) media, and you said the show got the idea from science; precisely the point he was making: fail.

Have a nice fail.

Re:Bare foot...

[JustOK]

if god meant us to walk bare foot, he wouldn't have given us feet to put shoes on.

Good to see confirming research

[geek2k5]

It is good to see some additional research confirming the hypothesis that too clean an environment is hazardous for the health of kids.

Booger Eeating Children

[LowlyWorm]

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?

Re:Booger Eeating Children

[Ellis D. Tripp]

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/135709/benefits_of_boogereating.html?cat=51
http://straightuptruth.blogspot.com/2006/09/eating-boogers-is-like-really-grody.html
http://www.blogster.com/anaibendai/eating-your-boogers-healthy

Re:Booger Eeating Children

[jc42]

Zoologists have documented a number of species of animals in which the young normally consume small quantities of the adults' feces. This is generally understood to be a way of establishing the species' normal intestinal flora, which their digestive system depends on. It seems to mostly happen in animals that eat a lot of greenery, since leaves are very difficult to digest, and animals generally need bacterial help to break down the plant cell walls.

One of the more curious example I read of was a species of lizard in which the adults normally spend all their time in the forest canopy. Field researchers were noticing that the newly-hatched young would climb down the trees and run around on the ground, as if they were looking for something. It turned out that they were looking for the adults' droppings, and eating them. Then they'd climb back up the trees, and after a few weeks, they'd stop going down to the ground.

Re:Booger Eeating Children

[LowlyWorm]

I read somewhere humor is associated with farts in all known human cultures. I have noticed we are one of the few species that produce audible farts. Anthropologist have theorized that farts may lend itself to social bonding.

We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[PIPBoy3000]

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.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Pyrion]

In other words, none of this "three square meals a day" bullshit. You eat however much satisfies you at the moment, no more, whenever you get hungry (or thirsty). Undoubtedly the way we survived as a hunter-gatherer species tens of thousands of years ago.

My diet could equate to a single large meal a day and that's it.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[honkycat]

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.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[kabome]

Not necessarily true, adaptations to consumption of milk has happened within a relatively short timespan: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=neolithic-europeans-lactose-tolerance People live much longer than they did tens of thousands of years ago for several reasons, one among them being diets were no where near as varied and able to supply all the necessary nutrients we require as we have today ("Mammoth steaks AGAIN?"), even though there is plenty of unhealthy modern food, there is plenty which has been created within the even the last 100 years which has improved the quality of healthy eating. There have been plenty of developments in the history of humankind which have provided advantages, you really can't say that suddenly stopped 10's of thousands of years ago.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Paul Fernhout]

Related to your point:
"The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health & Happiness"
http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Mastering-Undermines-Happiness/dp/1570671508
"Learn how to escape the dietary pleasure trap!"
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm
"""
From the perspective of our natural history, a daily life with such dietary choices is extraordinary. For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancient ancestors scratched and scraped, struggling against the harsh forces of nature in order to get enough food to survive. Even today, in undeveloped countries, significant food shortages are still a great concern, with millions dying each year from starvation. Yet, in a mere blink of history's eye--in just a few decades--industrialized societies have arisen from environments of scarcity and have transformed themselves into societies of unprecedented abundance. The most striking feature of that abundance is a virtually unlimited supply of food.
An abundance of food, by itself, is not a cause of health problems. But modern technology has done more than to simply make food perpetually abundant. Food also has been made artificially tastier. Food is often more stimulating than ever before--as the particular chemicals in foods that cause pleasure reactions have been isolated--and artificially concentrated. These chemicals include fats (including oils), refined carbohydrates (such as refined sugar and flour), and salt. Meats were once consumed mostly in the form of wild game--typically about 15% fat. Today's meat is a much different product. Chemically and hormonally engineered, it can be as high as 50% fat or more. Ice cream is an extraordinary invention for intensifying taste pleasure--an artificial concoction of pure fat and refined sugar. Once an expensive delicacy, it is now a daily ritual for many people. French fries and potato chips, laden with artificially-concentrated fats, are currently the most commonly consumed "vegetable" in our society. These artificial products, and others like them, form the core of the American diet. Our teenage population, for example, consumes 25% of their calories in the form of soda pop!
Most of our citizenry can't imagine how it could be any other way. To remove (or dramatically reduce) such products from America's daily diet seems intolerable--even absurd. Most people believe that if they were to do so, they would enjoy their food--and their lives--much less. Indeed, most people believe that they literally would suffer if they consumed a health-promoting diet devoid of such indulgences. But, it is here that their perception is greatly in error. The reality is that humans are well designed to fully enjoy the subtler tastes of whole natural foods, but are poorly equipped to realize this fact. And like a frog sitting in dangerously hot water, most people are being slowly destroyed by the limitations of their awareness.
"""

Personally, I feel many hunter/gatherers twenty thousand years ago may have lived longer and better than some people say they did (even as things got worse with rising population, competition, and agriculture). It really depends on where exactly they lived in what time period and what the local climate was like. There are places and times where six foot and taller skeletons were common, like on the shores of inland places that had big lakes.

From:
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm
"Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's - in which all the people's material wants were easily sat

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Sponge Bath]

many hunter/gatherers twenty thousand years ago may have lived longer and better than some people say they did

From a dietary and exercise standpoint, I would believe that. Throw in a thagomizer (or hominid contemporary equivalent), and not so much.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Dun Malg]

Dang that thagomizer, skewing the statistics down.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[kj_kabaje]

A case in point that contradicts what you say is found in the Christopher McDougall book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen." Very long-lived and low disease in a near-primitive society.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Cro Magnon]

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

Too true! If I had to chase my meals, I'd weigh quite a bit less than I do now.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[operagost]

I don't know what this guy is eating, but I go for lean meats in all but special occasions (we're talking once a year or so), and my potato chips don't have "artificially-concentrated" fats-- unless that's something you call "frying".

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Captain Nitpick]

Dang that thagomizer, skewing the statistics down.

Ahem.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Locke2005]

More simply put, people were designed to graze all day on unprocessed foods. Foods that take a great deal of calories to process and digest. If you have to do a lot of work to gather a food, remove it from a shell, etc., and digest it, you get full before you get too many net calories. However, if you constantly eat something like instant pudding, which is basically pre-digested for you, nearly 100% of the abundant calories in the food are available for your system, and most of them are stored for later as fat. A related effect of this is that many modern health problems like diabetes can be lessened simply by eating more fiber, like your body is designed to do. My diet philosophy is to simply eat what your ancestors ate for the last 10,000 years; that is what natural selection has designed you to do well with. A macrobiotic diet is, coincidentally enough, simply a traditional Japanese diet. Which leads me to suspect that most of the studies showing the benefits of macrobiotic diet were done on people of Japanese descent. For people of mediterranean descent, olive oil and red wine have proven health benefits -- no big surprise.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Locke2005]

Agriculture made civilization possible. Hunter-gatherers must be geographically dispersed in order to have access to enough food to survive. Agriculture made possible the gathering of people into large cities. Which is not necessarily a benefit to their health; it makes it much more easy for epidemics to wipe out large segments of the population. For example, the black plague was spread largely by rats on grain ships; without large-scale agriculture, it would never have become as widespread as it did. I'm not a historian, but I believe the more "civilized" peoples were decimated by it, while traditional hunter-gatherer societies were untouched due to their isolation. So yes, evolution has equipped us well to be hunter-gatherers, but not to live in huge cities eating food grown for us by strangers.

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Paul Fernhout]

Adequate vitamin D may help explain why people in the Mediterranian have less heart disease more than the diet itself.
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=site%3Awww.vitamindcouncil.org+mediterranean

Re:We're adapted to a hunter-gatherer society

[Paul Fernhout]

Jane Jacobs suggests that conventional wisdom is wrong -- cities existed before agriculture as trading posts; agriculture was then invented in cities.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs

The Earth has long been very abundant and ecologically productive in ways that we cannot even imagine these days. It was said of North American in the 1700s and 1800s: Skies darkened for days with a single bird flock (passenger pigeons). Streams with so much fish you could walk from one shore to the other over them. Plains full of Bison. (Well, at least when most of the Native Americans had died with the invasion of the Americas and the ecology had recovered and not yet been beaten back down.) If there are relatively few people, there is a lot of natural capital and natural income to go around.

But that is not to disagree with your main point. Malaria (as a significant disease) also is a product of agriculture.

Yes, we are out of touch with our roots. We either change our ways or change ourselves (evolution or engineering or equipment) or change our environment or some mix of those (or we go extinct). Humans have been slowly changing genetically and culturally to adapt over the last few thousand years.

Known this for years.

[Beowulf_Boy]

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.

Re:Known this for years.

[4D6963]

I don't even use soap, I just wash my hands with water, except when I do the dishes or have a shower. What's the point of using soap again? No seriously, why do we tell people to wash their hands with soap?

Living the bachelor lifestyle and I never get sick.. when I was a teenager I was a neat freak (the 'take your toothbrush to school' kind) and I'd get the flu with hallucinations-inducing fevers. Granted your immune system is supposed to be stronger as an adult, and not going to school you mix up with less people.

Re:Known this for years.

[markass530]

George carlin said it best "You know when I wash my hands after I use the bathroom? When I piss or crap on them, which is 2, 3 times a week tops.

Re:Known this for years.

[Macrat]

...I'd get the flu with hallucinations-inducing fevers.

Really mom! I'm not high! I have a hallucination inducing fever!

Re:Known this for years.

[ChrisMaple]

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.

Re:Known this for years.

[izomiac]

I do the same (I wash my hands after using the restroom, and wipe down my laptop keyboard with alcohol occasionally), am healthy, and agree with you. That said, it's not really a fair comparison between your average slashdotter and a member of the general population. In my case I'm in my 20s so it'd be unusual for me to get very sick in the first place. Second, my exposure risk is minimal: I live alone, don't have any pets, and my social life isn't exciting enough to be a disease vector. There is no reason for me to be very ill regardless of whether I am a germophobe or not.

Re:Known this for years.

[si618]

You know the #1 thing that hospitals can do to prevent the spread of infection?

Get staff who are in contact with patients to use hand gel.

I sure hope you don't work in the service or heath industry.

Re:Known this for years.

[WuphonsReach]

What's the point of using soap again?

Traditional soaps? To break down the bond between the dirt and your skin (or other surface), making it easier to remove. Which means instead of all that dirt being left on your hands or having to waste a few extra liters of water, you can scrub for far less time with a bit of soap.

Soap is not there to kill the germs, it's there to make it easier to get them off your hands and into the sink's drain.

Soaps are useful for cleaning because soap molecules have both a hydrophilic end, which dissolves in water, as well as a hydrophobic end, which is able to dissolve nonpolar grease molecules. Although grease will normally adhere to skin or clothing, the soap molecules can form micelles which surround the grease particles and allow them to be dissolved in water. Applied to a soiled surface, soapy water effectively holds particles in colloidal suspension so it can be rinsed off with clean water. The hydrophobic portion (made up of a long hydrocarbon chain) dissolves dirt and oils, while the ionic end dissolves in water. Therefore, it allows water to remove normally-insoluble matter by emulsification. In other words, while normally oil and water do not mix, the addition of soap allows oils to dissolve in water, allowing them to be rinsed away.

Soap - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re:Known this for years.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I love the job that commericals are doing, scaring parents into being hyper-sensitive. Nasty, green-faced animated germs that are just SWARMING over our Precious Children -- unless we use Clorox Wipes (which also kills H1N1!!!!11!*), which takes care of 99.9% of those animated nasties. Fear tactics so obvious, it's hard to see how anyone falls for it. But... then we turn on the news and hear how the Swine Flu is Killing Us All, so ... perhaps not so hard to understand.

* They started ading that tag to their commercials lately - presumably in response to the swine flu - but the best part is that "H1N1" is just the regular flu virus... Then again, I can't expect them to get facts right when my dr office has a sigh that says "HINI vaccines at Walgreens Now"

Re:Known this for years.

[IrquiM]

Got one of those "antibac" dispensers outside my office. The people that use them the most, are also the ones that are currently at home being sick.

Re:Known this for years.

[4D6963]

What kind of dumb ass comment is that? I don't stay around people with wounds or weakened immune systems, nor do I handle sick people all day, I only get the daily does of immune system tickling that keeps it going strong. Nothing wrong with that. That's as if I said that I don't see the point of wearing a hard hat so you go all "I sure hope you're no construction worker".

Re:Known this for years.

[4D6963]

Well, anti-bacterial soaps then!

Re:Known this for years.

[Alsee]

hallucinations-inducing fevers

I had that happen twice. I believe it might have been dehydration related. Ever since then I consciously hydrate when I get a fever, drinking plenty of half-water-half-orangejuice. Somehow half watered orange juice seems to go down very well even when I'm extremely sick and nauseous. I haven't experienced fever hallucinations ever since, though I guess it's possible I just "outgrew it".

-

Re:Known this for years.

[si618]

My point was that they do this for a very good reason, to prevent the spread of disease. An often quoted figure is ~80% of infections (everywhere, not just in hospitals) are spread because people don't wash their hands, or wash them properly.

http://www.cdc.gov/cleanhands/
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Handwashing_why_it's_important?OpenDocument

By washing your hands with just water, you are effectively saying you don't care about this for the people you do come in contact with. And I'm glad you have the ability to differentiate those with weakened immune systems.

Re:Known this for years.

[4D6963]

Good points.

Re:Nietzsche was right - that which doesn't kill u

[electrons_are_brave]

A lot of our increased life expectancy is to do with basic hygiene and the availability of germ-killing substances. But -as always - advertisers have exploited this respect for germs and turned it to maddness.

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.

Marketing

[JobyOne]

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?

Re:Bare foot...

[darthdavid]

And living naked, in a cave, with no fire while living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle is the natural way too. You can go first and let me know how it works out...

While I think this is true...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Yes, indeed

[DrYak]

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.

Re:Yes, indeed

[mcvos]

1 shower a day is good (*).

Only if your daily activity makes you so dirty that daily showers are required. If you work out every day, or if you work in a manure processing plant or something, 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.

Score for geeks!

[icannotthinkofaname]

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?

realization

[ascari]

It is suddenly clear to me: My mother wanted me dead!

Re:Bare foot...

[sowth]

...is an easy way to get parasites.

Carlin Quote

[hoagieslapper]

I was tempered in raw sewage!

Re:Carlin Quote

[zoloto]

Asshole, armpits, crotch and teeth. Preferably with the same brush!

Another reason : Allergy

[DrYak]

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.

Re:Another reason : Allergy

[TheRaven64]

Dawkins proposed the word 'designoid' to refer to things that appeared designed, but were not. He spent most of one of his 1991 Christmas Lectures providing examples. If you can find them online, they're well worth watching: Dawkins talking about science, before he started ranting about religion every time someone pointed a camera at him.

Re:Another reason : Allergy

[MikeBabcock]

Sorry but don't try to sound like you know this for certain. I hate to sound like a creationist or something, God forbid ;-), but you really can't be sure and you could've just left it alone.

Whether you presume the process evolved or was intelligently designed doesn't actually change the nature of the GP's argument in the least, does it?

Re:Another reason : Allergy

[MikeBabcock]

That is to say, before he started raving like one of the religious lunatics he claims to be so dead set against? I often find it subtly ironic that his arguing style sounds much more like that of an Evangelical preacher than of a scientist.

Re:Another reason : Allergy

[cparker15]

I'd argue that our biological features were designed by natural selection and evolution.

Re:Another reason : Allergy

[cparker15]

This.

When I was growing up, I was never allowed to get dirty. Germs were bad, and playing outside was considered hazardous. Whenever I had a spot on my skin that even resembled dirt, it was scrubbed until the skin turned red.

Fast-forward to today. My immune system is basically shot; whenever something "goes around", I get it without fail, and when I do get sick, it's nearly incapacitating; I have allergies to some medications, plants, and animals; my asthma (which I've had since birth) gets worse, not better; and I'm currently battling with CIU (chronic idiopathic urticaria), or hives that keep coming back without any known cause.

Please let your kids play outside. Let them get dirty. Their bodies will thank you.

Keep in mind that asthma is an autoimmune disorder that happens to manifest itself in the respiratory system. It is not in and of itself a disorder/disease of the lungs. The act of solely treating the symptoms of asthma is akin to spraying a fire extinguisher at the top of a flame, instead of at its base.

Ever since I read about the "hygiene hypothesis", I've considered infecting myself with hookworm (called Helminthic therapy) to keep my immune system busy. There are certain species of hookworm that aren't harmful to the body (under normal circumstances in first-world countries), are not hosts themselves to bacteria, viruses, or other parasites, only feed on a small amount of blood, and can neither reproduce within the host nor lay eggs while in the host. They're just enough of a nuisance to prevent the immune system from attacking random things in the body, and they work around the clock.

The only reason I haven't actively sought out this therapy is due to my primary care physician's recommendation against it. He grew up in a country where hookworm is common, and his sister died of an asthma attack; the fact that she most likely had hookworm and had asthma severe enough to kill her was convincing enough to me that this research may not be completely accurate.

Re:Nietzsche was right - that which doesn't kill u

[wertigon]

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.

Other hypothesis.

[DrYak]

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)

38 or more years old news.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:38 or more years old news.

[trouser]

When science and popular folk wisdom collide I don't see that popular folk wisdom gains any credibility. Popular folk wisdom is just a bunch of untested assertions unsupported by evidence stronger than personal anecdote. "My aunt Claire never washed, ate dirt with ever meal and lived to 103". So what? Some dirty people die in childhood. Some clean people live a long and relatively disease free life.

Evidence based science FTW.

Also, there are no facts, only theories. Long standing theories well supported by scientific evidence are sometimes mistaken for facts.

Re:38 or more years old news.

[Jesus_666]

Maybe this will convince some overprotective parents that their children will survive even if they aren't covered in antibacterial solution 24/7. I doubt they'll actually believe that it'll do their kids any good but it's already useful if they stop believing that all dirt is evil.

Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger

[RazorSharp]

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.

Re:Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger

[khallow]

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.

Re:Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger

[Dun Malg]

They're right only for a limited subset of microbes that people in hospitals are susceptible to. Your body is FULL of "microbes" already. What makes things like staph dangerous is open wounds and weakened immune systems... the sort of thing you generally only see in hospitals. Washing your hands at home because you touched a stick in the back yard is obsessive, not sensible.

Re:Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger

[khallow]

They're right only for a limited subset of microbes that people in hospitals are susceptible to. Your body is FULL of "microbes" already. What makes things like staph dangerous is open wounds and weakened immune systems... the sort of thing you generally only see in hospitals. Washing your hands at home because you touched a stick in the back yard is obsessive, not sensible.

That "limited subset" of microbes is quite unlimited. Virtually any microbe that gets into your body proper is dangerous even the normally nice ones in your digestive system. The body is designed to keep that stuff out for a good reason. Even with a healthy immune system you can die from microbes that get in. That's why nurses are hard core about cleanliness in the hospital. And I really don't why you brought up home cleanliness. It's not my experience that nurses are more obsessive about this than anyone else.

Same with software

[JuzzFunky]

I find the more bugs I introduce at the start of the project, the better the users are at dealing with bugs later on...

real data available

[cinnamon colbert]

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.

Re:real data available

[MikeBabcock]

I had a dentist say something similar about using antimicrobial mouthwash too often.

Re:Nietzsche was right - that which doesn't kill u

[ChrisMaple]

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.

You mean, Neitsche was right?

[Locke2005]

What does not kill me, makes me stronger.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888

Re:You mean, Neitsche was right?

[trouser]

So if you lost a limb but survived you would be stronger? But crippled? But a stronger cripple? Naturally the loss of limb would be due to an attempt to jump a shark, an attempt that went horribly, yet hilariously, wrong.

Vitamin D

[ChrisMaple]

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).

PigPen

[popeye44]

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.

Re:Uh... duh

[Erasmus]

I wouldn't be so smug. They've also come up with plenty of studies that disproved common sense.

Well, that may be all well and good for kids

[herojig]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[Faerunner]

People have been going barefoot and risking parasites for years. Funny thing, though. When you walk barefoot for long periods of time, you get these things called calluses on the bottoms of your feet, which protect them from being cut open and make it a lot harder for a parasite to burrow through! Also note that soil-borne parasites don't survive well in temperate or cold climates (such as most of the US and Canada), are rare except in soil contaminated by animal/human waste, and are generally easily treatable. Personally, I like going barefoot. The risk of stepping on broken glass, especially in urban areas, is far higher than the risk of picking up roundworms.

Re:Bare foot...

[fractoid]

If God had meant us to live naked in a cave with no fire while hunter-gathering, he wouldn't have given us these big brains that can figure out how to make clothes and shoes and houses and fire and fridges and supermarkets and big screen TVs.

Why can't people accept that the way humans live right now IS 'the natural way'. A gorilla's natural way is to eat nuts and berries and the odd chimpanzee. A human's natural way is to build tools and machines and try to understand their surroundings in order to control them. You don't complain that a beaver damming a river is 'interfering with the natural order'.

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

God had nothing to do with any of this.

Re:Bare foot...

[fractoid]

Prove it.

Um, duh?

[Beltonius]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[c6gunner]

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.

This story is old as dirt.

[kevin7kal]

Cause it was a House episode allready.

Re:Bare foot...

[fractoid]

Actually, no, you haven't proven anything. The point I was making was that whether or not God, the Holy Milk Jug, the FSM, or anything else have any supernatural effect on our world is by definition unprovable. I hold that they are therefore irrelevant. That doesn't stop me from using the "If God had intended..." structure in a figurative sense.

Also

[carp3_noct3m]

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.

Re:Also

[X0563511]

Interestingly enough, with the right type of water heater, taking those cooler showers lowers your electrical bill and, in the kind of tiny amount a given person can do, helps out environmentally as well.

Re:Also

[Painted]

I'm curious as to what would be the "wrong" kind of water heater in this scenario- I'd think that taking cooler showers, therefore using less hot water, would have a positive environmental impact regardless of the technology. Gas, electric, on demand- all of them would benefit from a reduction of use...

Re:Also

[X0563511]

If you have a "normal" water heater, it keeps the tank of water warm regardless of your use. Some newer ones heat the water "on demand" as it flows, so it only expends energy when you are actually using it.

Incidentally they are also much smaller. Substitute the huge tank with a small 1 or 2 foot square box a few inches deep, mounted on the wall.

Re:Also

[BLKMGK]

Tankless would the "right" kind. Tank water heaters must turn on and off simply to maintain the heat in the tank. I went from an efficient tank water heater to a tankless. In looking at the Energy rating stickers I found my tank heater was in the middle. My tankless sticker had the price point way to the left - I then noticed that the far RIGHT number didn't even overlap with the number on the far LEFT of the tank heater. It was THAT much more efficient - and it showed on my gas bill too! If you've got a big jacuzzi tub you either get one of these or you buy a GIANT tank heater and pay through the nose to keep it heated. Buy tankless! Just make sure you have a softener if the water is hard...

If you really want to do it better use evacuated tube solar. The payback on solar hot water is much faster than any of the other solar technologies and the evac tube stuff is VERY very good.

OT: nt

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

"nt" means "no text" and not "no topic" -- so if you had no text for your comment you'd say "nt: something here", and not the other way around...

Unless you were making an allusion to Windows 2000, Built on NT* Technology.

*NT = New Technology

Re:OT: nt

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I'm sure that the three of us who remember usenet and would recognize "NT" to mean that we didn't have to bother reading any further than the subject appreciate the attempt. As for the rest of you youngins... get off my lawn.

Re:OT: nt

[mcmonkey]

What happened to SSIA?

Re:OT: nt

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Laziness, of course... that's two whole extra keystrokes...

Run Away!

[pdwalker]

Don't consider marring this hypochondriac and having children with her. She'll pass that insanity onto the kids.

Find a healthy girlfriend.

Re:Nietzsche was right - that which doesn't kill u

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

the more germs a child is exposed to, the better

*cough* swine flu *cough*

With all that coughing, I hope you're using your purell!

Unpossible!

[trouser]

The immune system functions best when exposed to something akin to the ancestral evolutionary environment? Well shave my beard and call me normal!

I'm filthy

[slimjim8094]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[Imrik]

The same argument is easily reworked for whatever belief system (including evolution) you have.

Dept?

[Gible]

Why isn't this from the stating the obvious department ?

Are there really people who didn't know this?

[Hurricane78]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

You can't prove a negative. But there is no positive proof. And for that I hold a logical trump over your argument.

Eheh, read past the headline kiddo

[SmallFurryCreature]

You will see that with the increase in child-seat usage there is a sharp decline in child injuries, explain that away then sherlock?

Re:Bare foot...

[bhiestand]

I compromise: VFFs absolutely rule. Nearly as good as going barefoot, but with the protection from broken glass, rocks, etc.

Re:Bare foot...

[fractoid]

...wait, what? No, he's a Wookie. On Endor!

Re:Bare foot...

[roman_mir]

If God had meant us to live naked in a cave with no fire while hunter-gathering, he wouldn't have given us these big brains that can figure out how to make clothes and shoes and houses and fire and fridges and supermarkets and big screen TVs.

- prove that there is a god first. (though I think you used that just as a figure of speech).

Re:Bare foot...

[fractoid]

I suspect you have a case of whoosh here. Sure, it's the natural way for bacteria to multiply. And just as naturally, it's my way to take some antibiotics.

Thinking bigger, unless one chooses to subscribe to some Gaia-type theory, the Earth is not in any way conscious and has no goals or desires of its own. It's a giant rock covered in a very, very thin layer of pond scum. It's certainly not going to take antibiotics to kill us.

Re:Bare foot...

[mr_gorkajuice]

Believe is not subject to logical trumps.

this is bad science!

[V.V.Putin]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[Cro Magnon]

Except we still have the same primate bodies we had when we were living in caves. Just because our cave is now a house in the burbs doesn't change how our immune systems work.

Fellow geeks!

[SpaghettiPattern]

Fellow geeks! We're save!

Re:Bare foot...

[MikeBabcock]

LMAO, I've always wanted to meet someone who was there and could prove it, how do you do?

Get off your freakin horse.

Re:Bare foot...

[MikeBabcock]

We could all remember to throw in (or someone) after God, and perhaps (evolved|were desgined) when necessary, to cater to all audiences, except that Christians don't regularly rant on Slashdot about people who throw 'evolved' into their sentences the way idiots who don't actually understand science parade against the use of the words God or designed.

Dirty kids

[hesaigo999ca]

Well, I guess I could make a comment about how dirty kids really are.........
but I don't want to give the wrong impression,
instead I will site a passage from the bible ...Paul psalm 13.5

"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

Re:Bare foot...

[bzipitidoo]

To add to the parent, we were already dependent on some of our technologies even during the Stone Age. There are the tools of course. And we might starve if we could not cook. Our guts are no longer long enough to get sufficient nutrients from a diet of raw food. Then there is clothing. White skins in particular I think could not have evolved without clothing, as there is no nice warm climate at any latitude where white skin is an advantage, and then having a lot of the skin covered up by clothing maybe drives even more lightening. Clothes also protect from scuffs and scratches, and I shouldn't be surprised if our skins are becoming more fragile. We also depend on more sophisticated communication than any other animal has. Who knows how long ago the first smoke signals were sent? No need to run a marathon to deliver a message.

Re:Bare foot...

[internewt]

Evolution is NOT a belief system. The fact that you state it is shows you genuinely do not understand what science is about.

Re:Bare foot...

[c6gunner]

Actually, no, you haven't proven anything. The point I was making was that whether or not God, the Holy Milk Jug, the FSM, or anything else have any supernatural effect on our world is by definition unprovable. I hold that they are therefore irrelevant.

While you're right in a purely technical sense, such a belief system is eminently impractical. The biggest problem I have with it is that it encourages irrational beliefs and behavior. The most famous religious example is Pascals Wager. To use a secular example, a similar line of thought is used as a critique of the LHC experiments. It goes something like this:

"You can't prove that the LHC won't create a black hole which can destroy the earth. Since the consequences of that scenario are so extreme, it doesn't matter that the likelihood may be low - we should dismantle the LHC!"

Of course, such an argument completely ignores the fact that there is a non-zero probability of a black hole popping out of my ass the next time I fart. It's simply an emotional appeal based on a poor understanding of logic and probability.

In all practicality, idea and beliefs have to be considered untrue until some evidence is shown which supports them. Such evidence doesn't have to be conclusive or even thoroughly persuasive, but we need something. In the absence of any evidence the rational response is to reject the claim. Otherwise you could never say that "Santa Claus does not exist" because you have no evidence to support that statement, and you don't accept the lack of evidence as grounds for rejecting any claim.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that your request - for the GP to prove that God "had nothing to do with it" - is either irrational or pedantic, depending on why you're making it.

That doesn't stop me from using the "If God had intended..." structure in a figurative sense.

Of course not. Einstein was famous for using references to god, even though he didn't believe in any deities. Many atheists will speak in a similar manner simply because religious references are part of our culture. There's nothing wrong with that. After all, I can make Simpsons references without having to believe that Homer is a real individual.

Re:Bare foot...

[c6gunner]

Believe is not subject to logical trumps.

Belief certainly is subject to logical trumps. All sane people are capable of modifying their beliefs when presented with a logical argument - or with evidence - which disproves their initial assumptions. We see this happen all the time. As one example, some of my co-workers believed that the H1N1 vaccine was untested, contained harmful toxins, and was likely to cause neurological damage or other debilitating conditions. I used logic and reason to address their concerns, and several of them changed their minds. Most of the rest also changed their minds after either doing more research, or speaking to a doctor to verify the things I had said to them. So yes, belief is subject to "logical trumps".

The only problem is that most people are willing to ignore logic and evidence when it comes to certain types of beliefs. Even in this case, though, most of them either don't realize that their beliefs are illogical, or are unwilling to admit it. That's why creationists are constantly attempting to challenge evolutionary theory - because as far as they're concerned, their beliefs are based in logic. They don't have the information required to properly asses the situation, so they're convinced that creationist beliefs are logical and that evolutionary theory is illogical or unsupported. If you can show them that they've got it backwards, most of them are quite capable of changing their minds. Some will undoubtedly chose not to, but that's a different matter entirely.

It's quite rare for a theistic person to truly accept that their beliefs are illogical. In such circumstances you may very well be right - you probably can't use logic to sway people who understand that their beliefs are illogical and unsupported yet still consciously cling to them. They are encouraged in this sort of behavior by our strange tendency to give religious claims a deference which would never be extended to beliefs of any other kind. If the rest of us weren't so quick to give religion a free pass, you'd probably see fewer and fewer people clinging to beliefs which they know to be irrational.

More appropriate

[DrYak]

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.

Re:More appropriate

[cparker15]

Well-put. I concede.

Other problems

[DrYak]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

Actually, I think one of the points of this topic is that we have evolved to benefit from being dirty.

And so evolution did have something to do with this.

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

Are you trying to say something about me? You have no idea how well I 'actually understand science'.

Does my B.S. in Cellular/Molecular biology, minor in Chemistry, and certification in stem cell biology count?

At what point did generalizing people make sense to you?

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

I can argue the logical fact that you cannot prove god DID have anything to do with this. And so because I know you cannot prove that, in all facts that can be observed, I can hold that my statement is true.

As I said to the other guy. In a logical argument, you cannot be forced to prove a negative, but since your side requires you to give proof (and you can't), then I cannot lose this argument. The day you prove god is the day almost everyone gives up on any 'debate' or 'other belief' that might exist. It just won't happen because you can't and the facts are not there; the beliefs are unreasonable, which is the definition of faith.

Re:Bare foot...

[Urkki]

If God had meant us to live naked in a cave with no fire while hunter-gathering, he wouldn't have given us these big brains that can figure out how to make clothes and shoes and houses and fire and fridges and supermarkets and big screen TVs.

Why can't people accept that the way humans live right now IS 'the natural way'.

Our way of living right now isn't sustainable, which means we can't continue like this, we simply run out of resources. Therefore I'd say it can't be natural.

At most it could be said that it's natural for us to not have any natural way of life, but instead be in an exponential state of change. Then our current way of life isn't natural, but it's natural that it will be very different already in just a few decades.

Re:Bare foot...close but not quite

[vizbones]

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!

Re:Bare foot...

[Imrik]

One of the main ideas in science is that something isn't fact until it is proven. Proving evolution would require a time machine or FTL travel and an obscenely powerful telescope.

Evolution may not have been disproven, but that doesn't make it true. Assuming that it is requires its own kind of faith.

Re:Bare foot...

[internewt]

Thanks for replying with an equivalent to "but this one goes to eleven". I've been working on a reply to explain what to you what you clearly don't get, but even then you won't get it, so fuck it.

I'll just say that you need to realise that religion and science are not equivalent. They are based on different world views, religion on faith, science on observation and experiment. Until you realise what the difference means, you won't be ready to learn why I might say your reply is tantamount to "but this one goes to eleven".

Re:Bare foot...

[Imrik]

Science is based on observation and experiment, the evolution of mankind has not been observed or reproduced, accepting it as fact is not a scientific conclusion.

Re:Bare foot...

[MikeBabcock]

I'm quite certain those on Slashdot or even my close friends and relatives with Masters and PhDs in everything from computer mathematics to microbiology are very impressed with your BS.

To summarize my point again: making an unprovable claim is the opposite of science, whether its saying God does or does not exist. Quit claiming it either way if you want to make a scientific point.

Re:Bare foot...

[MikeBabcock]

You're the one making claims, not me.

I didn't say God did or didn't do anything (in this thread), all I implied was that your comment is inane.

You can't prove God had nothing to do with it, so don't say it. Say what you can prove, or what you suspect, or humbly admit that what you stated was an opinion based on your own experience.

Stating that God doesn't exist is not hard science, you may as well claim he does -- you'll sound just as ridiculous either way from a scientific perspective.

Just because claiming God doesn't exist is popular, what with some high profile anti-God evangelists selling a bunch of books doesn't make the claim any less ludicrous.

Slashdot...

[DaVince21]

This isn't news.

Re:Nietzsche was right - that which doesn't kill u

[DaVince21]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[darthdavid]

Yes, but no one is saying that it's a 100% proven fact.

Given the available data though, it would take a drooling idiot not to realize that it's the best explanation for the way life exists on this planet that we currently have.

And really, that's what science is all about, finding the best explanation we can for the data available. Just because evolution isn't 100% proven doesn't mean it's wrong, so unless you have a superior theory you'd like the bring out you need to shut the fuck up and stop splitting hairs.

For years I tell ya'!

[nezrael]

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!

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

Since there is no fact to confirm any presence of god, in our current best understanding of the world god is only a fantasy of human creation. So since you require me to be extra clear here, please take what I said before and add 'to the best of our knowledge'.

And now I compel you to provide ANY evidence whatsoever to the contrary. Would you like to refute that to the best of our knowledge god had nothing to do with this?

Ball is in your court now.

Evidence is great

[Politas]

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.

Re:Bare foot...

[MikeBabcock]

Nope, still in yours. There's nothing stopping anyone from saying anything they like for any reason they like, but you've made a claim, I didn't.

The one who makes the claim gets to provide the proof.

You claimed there is no God. I made no claims that need justification at all.

To explain this to you by way of example, next time you feel the need to mouth off that there "is no God", you could just respond to the OP requesting why they believe there is one and not be stuck in this logical fallacy.

PS I wasn't the OP.

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

Ok. Here are the facts. God has never been proven in any fact whatsoever (else there would be little dispute).

Based on what we know to be true, God had nothing to do with this. I could be wrong, but for lack of evidence otherwise, my statement is true to the best of our knowledge.

Thanks for playing.

Re:Bare foot...

[MikeBabcock]

"For lack of evidence otherwise" has never been a good justification for claiming a belief system to be fact.

The sooner you realize this, the sooner you'll have a leg up on the people you disagree with. Until then, you just have a different belief system.

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

It is illogical to ask someone to prove a negative. I've already told you this, but you maintain your irrational request.

My 'belief system' is based on facts, which are positively evidenced, and thus rational. I cannot be, in logic, required to prove a negative.

And so I contend that for all known facts, god had nothing to do with this. You can keep making irrational demands of me, but it can't happen.

What I can say is that for lack of proof, there is no proof, and so to the best of our knowledge I am right. And you, without proof, keep demanding I provide proof of no proof. I have told you again and again that there is proof of no proof because there is no proof. You, without proof, contend that I must show proof of no proof. I say that because there is no proof, there is no proof. ... Get it?

Did you miss logic in college?

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

read my other reply, but here is a link to a definition of the fallacy you are making.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Re:Bare foot...

[MikeBabcock]

I said nothing of the sort and this will in fact be my last reply because you fail to comprehend the difference between arguing a specific point and arguing with the perceived position you impose on another. I have nothing against a good argument, but this is bordering on ridiculous as you continue to throw counter-arguments at me about things I've never said.

I've made almost none of the claims you think I need to prove, and if you bothered to read any of the arguments I've made back, you'd see that very clearly.

Thanks for the link, I've studied under-grad logic before, and I did not commit the fallacy in question as only someone making claims could have done so, and I made none. I only requested that you justify your own position, which you can't, and therefore are the one making invalid arguments.

Re:Bare foot...

[joocemann]

I told you that "As best as we know, god had nothing to do with this". At first I said "god had nothing to do with this", but in that I was not absolutely true, so I refined my point to be valid (which is shown in the history).

Then you committed the fallacy with your blathering.

I'm sure you will give up since the fallacies you're making are ridiculous and your nonsensical mind will not acknowledge it. Should I reference everything you said to prove it? Oh right, its all right here and visible in the history. No need.