too much hygiene is bad for you

[piranha]

ha. for a long time i've had a vague hypothesis (that's really too grandiose a term), wondering whether america's obsession with hygiene might not in some way be partly responsible for what i thought was a disproportionately large number of allergies and autoimmune diseases.

seems there's some actual science in support now.

via wcg.

Comments

[snippy]

Yeah, but. They only sampled the wild rats who *survived* being exposed to all those germs. How many didn't survive? Are we willing to return to high infant mortality rates to decrease allergies and autoimmune diseases?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

It's hardly necessary to go that far.

We have four kids, now 23, 22, 19, and 15. When they were young, we read that the average child had 6 colds per year. But we would go through entire "cold seasons" without any of the kids having a single cold--and they were in part-time day care. I don't think there was ever a year when any of them had 6 colds.

We thought then, and think now, that this was primarily because of three factors: (1) they were never, ever exposed to smoke; (2) we had a water cooler from which they could get their own drinks whenever they wanted them; (3) we didn't bathe them more than once or twice a week, but made sure their hands were washed frequently.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

Well, my anecdotal evidence can beat up your anecdotal evidence. :-)

I have no allergies, and don't get colds often. Both of my parents smoked like chimneys the whole time I was growing up. We had no water cooler. Bathing and hand-washing was spotty, as we outnumbered the adults in the house by more than 2:1 at all times and 5:1 for about 80% of the awake time.

My husband's mother smoked until he was 10 years old, and he has allergies like crazy. As does his mother. My best friend has allergies to beat the band, and both of her parents have allergies and they ALL consider cigarette smoke to be the work of the devil. Genetic? Maybe.

But. I do believe that there is something very compelling in the idea that developed nations have a disproportionately larger number of allergies and autoimmune diseases than developing nations. For my part, I'd love to see some research about the link between allergies and physical activity rather than hygiene.

We here in NorAm can and do get to most places via motorized transportation. Decidedly not so in most of Africa, Asia and Latin America. My observation is that Europeans walk more than NorAms do and less than folks in developing countries do.

Lungs. Use 'em or lose 'em.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

huh. that hadn't even occurred to me, a link with physical activity -- probably because the heavy motorization to me instantly conjurs up pollution, and that is a really likely culprit for a whole host of issues IMO.

i concur that europeans walk more than noram people. my birth family didn't even have a car. if something was too far to walk i'd ride my bicycle -- every weekday to school, for example, and after school for fun. we also hiked together regularly, and there was PE in school. we had no television, and spent most of the time we might've spent watching playing outside instead. i do think all that was good for my general development. interestingly enough i was always chubby, even though i was quite active and didn't eat abnormally much or any junk food at all -- most people in my family were short chubs, so i think that's genetics and probably the heavy-on-the-carbs family diet.

of course now i am a total bum in comparison. and still no allergies. i haven't had a cold in years, but i ascribe that to not exposing myself much to people in the flesh. :) i never got as many as some other people around me, but i did get more of them when i worked in an office. i basically think i have good genes (in that regard), and an immune system that didn't get fucked with much when i was growing up, and i am still skating on those laurels.

lest it wasn't obvious, i neither think anecdotal evidence proves anything, nor that there is one simple cause for allergies.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

No, no simple cause, but pretty strong correlation in two of the people I have close contact with that their allergies were significantly improved when their level of physical activity went up.

My partner had a *much* more mild experience of allergies this year, despite reports that it was the Worst! Year! Ever! for pollen counts in this neck of the woods. His physical activity has gone waaaayy up in the last couple of years.

And his mother is now working out and hiking to beat the band, and her (very bad) allergies have all but disappeared.

Note: not a syllable about weight. ;-)

No, I wouldn't run out and print this in a science journal, but I would very much like to see someone ask these questions in a more empirical way.

And I hear you about pollution and motorized lives. But my observation in both Ghana and Vietnam was that although the vast majority of folks got around by walking, what motorized transport there was put out the most incredibly noxious fumes, visibly and nose-ally worse than cars in NorAm. Also, regulations on factory pollution are less in the developing world, etc.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh, i was gonna ask -- how do you think the watercooler matters?

we didn't have one. we did drink a lot of water though, from the well and later the tap (instead of soda or other artificially sweetened drinks).

all the men in my birth family smoked, and my father in specific was a chain smoker. my maternal grandfather died of lung cancer when i was just under 17. i don't know whether anyone else did later, since that's when i divorced the lot of them. nobody made a connection between the lung cancer and the smoking then, not that i remember. it certainly didn't stop my father.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

The water was nice and cold, it didn't taste icky like Minneapolis's water does at certain times of year, and the kids could get their own drinks without having to ask, even when they were very little. So they drank a lot of water.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't quite understand why you think that a somewhat decreased emphasis on hygiene would result in high infant mortality rates? i don't think anyone is advocating a return to pre-18th century hygiene, which would be, i guess, the equivalent to living like wild rats today :). (i guess i don't see anyone advocating anything at this stage; it's just a study. just for the record, my vague hypotheses collection also thinks that environmental pollution has much to answer for when it comes to allergies.)

to keep with my anecdotal experience: where i grew up, we bathed once a week, we didn't use antibacterial soaps and cleaners, we didn't wear anti-perspirants, and we were generally not concerned with hygiene to the point where all natural body odours had to be eliminated and every inch of skin surface had to be scrubbed clean (ditto for all surfaces in the home). oh, and we were breastfed as babies, though that ties into hygiene only tangentially (but is important for the development of a good immune system).

i recall as most important hygiene lesson taught: "wash your hands after going to the bathroom, and before eating". there were others too, about food handling (clean before storing, separate storage for dairy, veg, and meat, cold storage for perishables), how to deal with wounds (wash hands, iodine on it no matter if it hurts), and about not sharing nee^H^H^Hfood stuffs; eg not drinking out of the same glass. i think my family was about average for the way they handled hygiene, judging from conversations with others back then.

and yet i don't recall babies dropping dead like flies. i'm too busy with other stuff to dig up 30 year old numbers, but it would surprise me if they were drastically different from today; europe was doing a pretty good job of keeping its babies alive. i don't know how hygiene considerations have changed in europe in the last 25 years either (wow, i have been gone for longer than i lived there); i bet more of it jumped on the anti-bacterial bandwagon. be interesting to see comparative numbers for allergies and autoimmune diseases.

[ailbhe]

FWIW the US currently has worse infant mortality than most of Europe (WHO site has stats somewhere).

Breastfeeding is a hygiene issue because formula equipment needs to be properly prepared, and formula needs to be properly stored, and not doing that can lead to food poisoning which elads to infant diarrhoea.

We bathed weekly, changed underwear daily, washed hands after bathroom and sometimes before eating, didn't share lollies or cutlery, never kissed anyone with a cold sore. I think that's it.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

so formula feeding is an example where lackadaisical hygiene is a bad thing.

now that i am thinking about it, i am not 100% sure that we weren't partly formula-fed, at the very least my youngest brother. i remember my mother breastfeeding, but i also vaguely remember my mother boiling baby bottles and teats. i would have been 5-6 years old.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Well, my house is definitely always super messy and my children always super healthy.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I've been saying for decades that people worry about cleanliness too much, especially people that constantly wash their hands and doubly so for people that use antibacterial soaps and stuff. Really drives those people crazy that I basically never get sick, they get sick relatively often, and according to their theory of how things work it should be exactly the opposite. MWUAHAHAHAHAHA!

I was even more sure of my theory when I found out that almost all of the studys that showed that people should wash their hands all the time were done with grants from soap companies.

"The plural of anecdote is not data."
- Ward Curtis