June 17, 2006
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A short, yet intriguing, story on the health front from the AP: Rat study shows better dirty than clean
Gritty rats
and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune
systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy
antiseptic labs, two studies indicate.The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.
The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized
Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy
and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes
and rheumatoid arthritis.The theory, called the hygiene
hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems aren't being
challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body's natural
defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen.The new studies, one of which was published Friday in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, found significant differences in the immune systems between euthanized wild and lab rodents.
When the immune cells in the wild rats are stimulated by researchers,
"they just don't do anything; they sit there. If you give the same
stimulus to the lab rats, they go crazy," said study co-author Dr.
William Parker, a Duke University professor of experimental surgery. He
compared lab rodents to more than 50 wild rats and mice captured and
killed in cities and farms.
You know, this makez scads of sense, as I simply don't recall people being so sick when I was a child. My dinosaur-playing friend, Sandy, was the only kid I knew (so far as I knew) with asthma. Knew one or two children allergic to strawberries, seems like, but that's about it, barring hay fever. Mainly we passed sore throats around, and suffered with ear infections.See? That parental fixation on us children making our beds every day had dire consequences for everyone in the long run.
Comments (4)
My house is held together by the pet hair and dust. My animals (2 dogs and one old old cat) shed so much I'm surprised the lot of them aren't bald. And the dust, we live up against the mountains, the wind blows constantly and I'm too lazy to dust every day (family'd probably think I was ill if I did it weekly at this point in my life!)
Here is another theory that I lean towards, especially since my allergies act up more in less clean environments. THis is a great reason to use Melaleuca's Eco Sense cleaning products.
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Published on Thursday, December 23, 2004 by the Times/UK
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Household Chemicals in Direct Link to Asthma Rise
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by Nigel Hawkes
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HOUSEHOLD chemicals, including bleach, disinfectant and cleaning fluid, have been blamed for the huge surge in childhood asthma in Britain.
A study of more than 7,000 children shows that children born into households which use them most are twice as likely to suffer persistent wheezing, often a precursor to asthma.
Incidence of the disease has tripled since the 1970s and the total number in the country who suffer is estimated to have reached 1.4 million. Britain has one of the highest rates of wheezing children in the world.
The study shows a clear connection between persistent wheezing and use of a range of domestic chemicals, such as bleach, paint stripper, carpet cleaner and air freshener. The use of household cleaning products has soared in the past two decades: the market has grown by 60 per cent since 1994.
The researchers are not claiming that these chemicals cause asthma but that there is a strong link. Their results back up an Australian study published in August.
The data comes from Bristol University’s Children of the 90s project, which has been following a group of children born in the Avon area in the early 1990s. This study, published in Thorax, correlates health with information about their homes and lifestyle.
“We are seeing what appear to be effects on lung function, either while the baby is still in the womb or after birth,” Dr Andrea Sherriff, of the university, said. “We cannot say exactly what chemicals are involved but our results are highly validated. We know the participants in the study well and can rely on the information they give us.”
Before they gave birth, mothers were asked how often they used certain chemical-based products. From these questions, their households were divided into categories based on “total chemical burden”.
The team compared this with the incidence of wheezing in children up to the age of 3½. Those in the top 10 per cent were more than twice as likely to suffer persistent wheezing as those in the lowest 10 per cent.
“We have since followed children to the age of 8,” Dr Sherriff said. “The effects seem to persist.” The team concludes: “These findings suggest that children whose mothers made frequent use of chemical-based domestic products during pregnancy were more likely to wheeze persistently throughout early childhood, independent of many other factors.”
The Australian study, based on a smaller sample, linked volatile compounds in household chemicals with asthma. The Bristol team suggests that the chemical formaldehyde could be a common factor.
Another possible explanation is that cleanliness itself may cause asthma. This theory suggests that the immune systems of children raised in over-clean environments do not develop properly. As a result they turn against the body and trigger allergies, asthma or eczema.
Professor Andrew Peacock, of the British Thoracic Society, said: “More long-term studies are needed before we advise pregnant women to throw out all their air fresheners. But there are measures that can be taken to protect yourself and your baby, such as reducing the number of household products that you use and by wearing gloves and keeping windows open when cleaning.”
THE CULPRITS
· Disinfectant (used by 87.5% of households)
· Bleach (84.8)
· Aerosols (71.7)
· Air freshener (68)
· Window cleaner (60.5)
· Carpet cleaner (35.8)
· Paint or varnish (32.9)
· White spirit (22.6)
· Pesticide (21.2)
· Paint stripper (5.5)
· Dry-cleaning fluid (5.4)
Heh! That's why Katie's never been sick: She actually put a dead mouse IN her mouth when she was a babe-on-knees. We'd gotten home from a day in town, and I'd set her down on the floor while I brought groceries or something in. Then went and found her splooshing and splashing something in her hand. You know, waving it around and it was wet and sloppy.
Yup. Dead mouse. ew.
I went to a gastro-enterologist the other day, and he blamed the rise of autoimmune illnesses on the cleanliness of our environment. He said babies & children should play in the dirt! Also, since the use of antibiotics kills friendly intestinal bacteria, he tells all his patients to drink Dannon's DanActive everyday.
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