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Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child
Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."
For years it's been known that kids from third world countries usually don't suffer from auto-immune diseases and things akin because of the sickly environment they are exposed too. It's simple, if you live constantly with the risk of infection your body will build up a stronger immune system than someone who lives in a bubble.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
My kid must be immortal!
Same basic theme as the "hygeine hypothesis" that exposure to soil bacteria plays an important role in causing the immune system to deemphasize inflammatory responses and rely more on cell-mediated immunity. In particular, it's been invoked to account for ectopic disease and asthma.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
And the corollary is... a dirty old man is a healthy old man.
This is why I plan on mounting mirrors and/or cameras on both my cane and my shoetips.
This is why, as an old man, I will take a volunteer job on a college campus somewhere in Florida.
This is why, as an old man, I plan to be a huge supporter of high school sports, standing on the sidelines with my hands in my pockets.
I don't want to die, and if being a dirty old man is what it takes, then so be it.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
A friend of mine teaches at a primary school. She has noticed the kids from the "bad side" of town may have other problems but bizarre allergies aren't one of them. In contrast, the kids with nut allergies, pollen allergies, etc. are the ones from upper class neighborhoods with an obsessive focus on cleanliness - they get sent to school with little bottles of purell in their knapsacks.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
George Carlin said it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s
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.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Also another related advantage :
It might get the kid exposed to parasite.
Not only does the kid get preventive antibodies ready to be used in case of real parasites invasion (just like with bacteria as in the above explanation), it might as well diminish risks of allergy.
As far as the hypothesis goes :
- People exposed to parasite :
100% of them make adapted anti-bodies (IgE) and prepares mast-cells, ready to use in case of real parasite invasion.
- People never exposed to parasite :
In most of people :
nothing happens, the part of the immune system responsible for parasite response (IgE antibodies and mast cells) just sits idle.
No allergy happens.
In unlucky people with genetic predispositions :
out of "bordom" is it doesn't have anything else to do, the system start to attack random mostly innocent stuff, which are just mildly irritating but have nothing to do with actual parasites.
The body creates IgE targeted toward food or to animals' saliva, and has mast-call equipped against that.
Unlike a real parasite (which is an animal, and thus can only exist in a single point of the body - well, ok : unless it's two specimen, in which case they are in 2 points, but you got the main idea), the target substance is soluble or is a liquide and can diffuse across the whole body.
Thus the Mast-cell don't react only locally at the single point(s) where the paraiste(s) is/are, but react everywhere in the body, creating systemic symptoms => allergic reactions.
This might get really dangerous, because the whole parasite reaction cascade (like dilating blood vessel and lowering blood-pression) was never designed to happen everywhere at the same time => anaphylaxis.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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.
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.
I find the more bugs I introduce at the start of the project, the better the users are at dealing with bugs later on...
Unexpect the expected!
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
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
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.
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.
Perhaps they were trying to get rid of you. Its just a thought.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
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'.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
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."