Get out of that tub, don’t you know it’s dangerous to be clean!
Duke University Medical Center – 16-Jun-2006:
In a study comparing wild rodents with their laboratory counterparts, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have found evidence that may help to explain why people in industrialized societies that greatly stress hygiene have higher rates of allergy and autoimmune diseases than do people in less developed societies in which hygiene is harder to achieve or considered less critical.
The prevailing hypothesis concerning the development of allergy and probably autoimmune disease is the “hygiene hypothesis,” which states that people in “hygienic” societies have higher rates of allergy and perhaps autoimmune disease because they — and hence their immune systems — have not been as challenged during everyday life by the host of microbes commonly found in the environment.
Mmm… if KFC can be sued for having too much fat in their food, can soap companies be sued for cleaning too well?
Bah, the French has known this for years. 😉
I know it’s an anecdote but…
I raised my daughter in Pakistan and when she was teething she was absolutely OBSESSED with chewing shoes.
It is hard for Americans to understand how foul the streets of a Pakistani city are… with all the spitting; snot shooting; camel, donkey and goat crap; swirling piles of garbage; maggots; etc. etc.
So we and our visitors would walk through that horrendous filth and then take our shoes of, in Asian tradition.
In baby tradition, my daughter would put them in her mouth!
OK, you guessed the moral of this story:
My daughter was never sick. NEVER! Honest Abe… she got her real first illness when she was almost three, after we left to a cleaner country! Go figure.
George Carlin had a really funny routine about germs and stuff… i can’t remember where i saw it.. HBO special? The gist was that if you spend all your time avoiding germs – in the end you were worse off…
Fellow Dhimmi’s
It’s also possible that in societies that have the time and money to maintain a higher degree of cleanliness also have the time, money and desire to assist those that have poor health in staying alive.
I’d be willing to bet you could draw an exact parallel between societies cleanliness, health care and life expectancy. Meaning people in societies that are cleaner, also spend more on health care also live longer and are more advanced societies overall, ie tolerant – they also smell better
For Moe29: The Carlin riff is from an ’89 HBO special, and can be heard on “You Are All Diseased.” The total albumn isn’t so funny, but that track is totally spot on.
“We never got sick becasue we swam in sewage.”
5,
there is a POINT of going to far. As with ANY science.
DONT kill the GOOD with the bad.
And afew scientists are looking a Bacteria to IMPROVE health.
a little poison dont hurt, you have to catch a cold to stem off the Pnuemoinia(sp)… Alittle wine, isnt bad…
a sterlized environment gets DIRTY LONG before one that has a few bugs. AS ALL the BUGS are fighting EACH other, rather then YOU.
ASK any hospital thats been around ALONG time. They generally have to be TORCHED as a virus enbeds itself into EVERYTHING after a long period…