Getting grimy as a child can make for a healthier life

[pokerfan]

Exposure to germs as a kid seems to be helpful, while living in an environment that's squeaky clean seems to pose risks for some illnesses. Still, nobody knew precisely why. But now some scientists say they think they've figured out the details of the "hygiene hypothesis."

They found that microbes in the gut keep a rare part of the immune system reined in. No microbes, and the immune cells go crazy in the lungs and intestines, increasing the risk of asthma and colitis. Add in the microbes, and cells in question, invariant natural killer T cells, retreat.

The discovery was one of those lovely "aha" moments in science. Or as says Richard Blumberg, the chief of gastroenterology at Brigham and Woman's Hospital in Boston, and co-author of the study says: "We made the serendipitous observation that these cells were dramatically enriched in the lung and colon in mice that lacked any microbes."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/23/149232765/why-getting-grimy-as-a-child-can-make-for-a-healthier-life

George Carlin was right: What do you think you have an immune system for? It's for killing germs! But it needs practice, it needs germs to practice on. So listen, if you kill all the germs around you and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you're not gonna be prepared.

[ejpoeta]

1. i have long thought that. people are so afraid to have their kids get dirty

then you wonder why the kids get everything going around all the time.

[elleng]

2. Dunno, I never liked to get grimy,

but have been pretty healthy.
Daughters never got 'grimy,' but we didn't protect them from playing w other kids, getting germs that way, but they're pretty susceptible to stuff now, as young adults.

[Ron Obvious]

3. Makes sense to me!

I know people who won't let you touch their baby unless you first wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap. That can't be healthy. We co-evolved with germs for millions and years, often for mutual benefit after all, didn't we? Petting an animal is supposed to make people live longer, isn't it?

I've also heard the hypothesis advanced that this sort of paranoia about germs might be responsible for the rise in auto-immune disorders. That would seem to make sense to me. The developing immune system needs a workout, and if it doesn't, it'll start attacking its own body. OK, crudely and unscientifically put, but it would make sense to me.

[brewens]

4. I have a wildman hunter/fisherman from hell buddy. He hikes everywhere too and travels light.

He says he can drink about any water anywhere and not get sick from it. He claims he's always done that. Never carries much water and always plans on drinking what he can get on the trail. He's done it ever since he was a kid so is tolerant of the microbes that give anyone else "beaver fever".

[PADemD]

5. If your friend comes to PA

Tell him to not drink the fracking water.

[Nay]

10. Well, if he drinks any water with giardia in it, he ain't gonna be happy....but conceivably it will

REALLY boost his immune system...

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. well, then, my kids are good to go!

caught them knee deep in the creek by the back of the property this afternoon...planning on constructing a dam or a bridge...they were trying to figure which would work best...

sP

[Staph]

7. I spent summers as a child

at my grandmother's house, in a very small town in West Virginia. Her water was untreated, straight from the well. We had chores, like weeding the garden and feeding the chickens. We cousins played outside from dawn to dusk, and we're all disgustingly healthy. Minimal allergies, no asthma. The oldest cousins are in their 70s.

One of my sisters went on a high school trip to Mexico. She was one of the few that didn't get Montezuma's Revenge, and always claimed that it was because she had had all of those germs as a kid!

[kestrel91316]

8. Idle hands are the devil's playthings. So too are idle immune systems, it would seem.

[tridim]

9. Be sure to eat your boogers kids.

[sakabatou]

11. Here's the video of Carlin

[Javaman]

12. I just read a great book...

The Viral Storm.

Virology and Microbiology are hot fields. We know less about what is in a teaspoon of dirt than we know about the larger animals in the wild.

A teaspoon of dirt on the average holds roughly 10 billion microbes.

The farther we get away from working the land the more problems, I believe, occur in our own biology.

Plant something, work the soil. Even if it's a small pot of flowers on your window sill. Not only you get the beauty but feeling the earth between your fingers echos something from a distant human past that you will calm you.