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Being Too Clean Can Make People Sick
An anonymous reader writes "Young people who are overexposed to antibacterial soaps containing triclosan may suffer more allergies, and exposure to higher levels of Bisphenol A among adults may negatively influence the immune system, a new University of Michigan School of Public Health study suggests (abstract, full paper [PDF]). Triclosan is a chemical compound widely used in products such as antibacterial soaps, toothpaste, pens, diaper bags and medical devices. Bisphenol A is found in many plastics and, for example, as a protective lining in food cans. Both of these chemicals are in a class of environmental toxicants called endocrine-disrupting compounds, which are believed to negatively impact human health by mimicking or affecting hormones."
But it won't kill me, because I won't use them. In the past 20 years or so we have become so afraid of dirt that our kids will have practically no immune system at all.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Now the article suggests that it could either be caused by the hygiene or the chemicals used in the cleaners.
Now if this study was well done and had some control groups, say other forms of cleaners, we might learn something we didn't already know.
One claim is that being too clean makes people unhealthy. The other is that triclosan and BPA make people unhealthy. Those are two very distinct and different claims. The latter claim is what this study seems to prove, while the former claim seems completely unsubstantiated by this study according to TFA.
If those antibacterial products could have been made with a compound other than triclosan, would cleanliness still have a negative impact on health?
Further, the closing comment on the article makes another good point:
So really, there seems to be NOTHING in support of the claim that being too clean makes people unhealthy.
This is either another case of journalistic ignorance or journalistic sensationalism. But seeing as the journal is called Medical Daily, you'd expect them to have at least a minimum amount of knowledge and insight.
Except instead of your "hey wouldn't it be totally ironic if anti-bacterial soap made people SICKER!!??" observation, they have identified Triclosan and Bisphenol A as an endocrine disruptor with the specific function of inhibiting the immune system not by protecting it from exposure or selectively breeding resistant germs (the two popular "well duh" observations here) but by actually inhibiting the effectiveness of the immune system. Knowing this, as opposed to say "knowing that for sure, antibacterial soaps are totally bad because they don't let your body *learn* about bad germs!!!" is what leads to advances in medicine and pathogen control.
I'm not a doctor but I appreciate what they do.
It's not new that our immune system has to be trained to work well. And only some kind of idiot doesn't make the link that keeping the kids away from every source of infection must result in an inferior immune system. Where's the news here?
What's new, it seems (even by reading the summary and not venturing near TFA) is that the story has NOTHING to do with "training" the immune system. Instead the study was on how endocrine inhibitors influenced immune system effectiveness. Strangely, they made no mention of the "kids who played with dirt vs. kids who were kept in a hermetic bubble" research that so many on slashdot are fond of reciting.
Can it be shown that this level of fecal matter makes you sick?
Please realize that fecal matter is a large component of the soil. Dust from soil gets into the air during wind storms. You take it into your lungs and also collect it in the mucus in your nose.
Large amounts I would expect to be harmful, but trace amounts?
...indeed that being 'too clean' is disastrous to one's health. Having spent more than 15 years in Africa, I came to the observation that folks over there are allergic to nothing I could tell. Not pollen, nuts, honey, dust...name it!
When I came to America, I found it strange to see that people were allergic to certain smells during summer! Insane.
The trouble is that companies continue to tout these so called hygiene products which in effect, make people's lives miserable. The fact is that bacteria found in the environment are more or less harmless.
Fear of Germs.
Skip ahead to 1:49.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The news here is that there maybe a link between chemicals used in antibacterial soaps, etc, and immume disfunction (over activity - allergies/etc).
This is NOT at all the same as the trite observation that your immune system (mostly) needs to be exposed to stuff to protect you from it. Lack of protection isn't the same as disfunction, and this isn't about NOT being exposed to anything - it's about BEING exposed to something (certain harmful chemicals).
Of course, correlation isn't causation, and it's not necessarily the chemicals cited that are causing the disfucntion, so (as the authors conclude) this only incidates the need for further study.
We got a puppy a couple years ago, and since then, whenever we go for walks, I always let her drink from puddles, play in the dirt, and sniff and eat pretty much anything (except cat poop--that's just gross.) My thought is that if her body gets used to the dirty things around her, she'll have a stronger constitution. Obviously far from scientific, but after over two years, she's in perfect health. it's really nothing more than how I grew up as a kid. We played in the dirt, drank from streams, and pretty much didn't care about what we got into. Other than the occasional bout of the runs or poison ivy (thankfully, unrelated!) my friends and I grew up pretty healthy.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Subject: No shit !
Content: nuff said
Moderation: (Score:2, Informative)
Would some of the moderators, please, inform me which information is that post bringing to me?
Because we're not born with immunity to most things. We acquire it from low level exposure. If you remove all of those initial low level exposures from someone's life, they won't acquire immunity. It makes perfect sense.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Someone ought to throw the idiots who allow this crap to get posted under a bus. I'm getting sick of reading "breakthrough" and "discovery" articles about stuff that was, and still is, already known 40+ years before SlashDot was around. We knew this back in grammar school, while some high-paid, University egg-head rehashes old research and claims some kind of discovery!
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
When I was a kid, no such thing as "anti bacterial soap" existed for the public's use. Soap, of several varieties did, and that was used. I played in the mud as a kid, drank out of the hose in the yard (in the summer, you ran it because the water in it was HOT... not to clean/clear anything out of it that may be bad for you or living in there. I remember seeing ants and/or spiders crawl out of the hose when I picked it up. I ran the water until a cool temp, drank, and shut off the hose without giving it a second thought.) and like most kids those (and these?) days, usually cleaned up when Mom and/or Dad forced you to. Was I sick? Not really. Maybe a cold every year or two, depending on where we lived. As an adult, I never was phobic about any and all germs around me. At my current age (45), I am still healthy as a horse. I don't really remember the last time I had a cold that was much more than simple sniffles. The last time I missed work was from hernia surgery. I have that wonderful feature of an IMMUNE SYSTEM. I feel that your body can be conditioned to have one. Anti bacterial soaps, etc. kill EVERY germ you have on your skin, both good AND bad. No thanks. I never have used that stuff, and have ZERO interest in using it. I'll stick to common soaps and shampoos, thanks... Now GET OFF MY LAWN (and I'll get off my soapbox, no pun intended)
Stone