Is dirt good for kids? (Study)

[HuckleB]

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/11November/Pages/Is-dirt-good-for-kids.aspx

Excerpt from the start of the piece.

“Children should be allowed to play in the dirt because being too clean can impair the skin’s ability to heal itself,” The Daily Telegraph reported. It said scientists have found that common bacteria on the skin’s surface can “dampen down overactive immune responses, which can lead to rashes or cause cuts and bruises to become swollen and painful”.

This news report is based on research in human skin cells and mice. Researchers found that some non-harmful bacteria that live on the skin play an important role in regulating inflammation. These intriguing findings improve our understanding of the complex reactions that occur when cells are infected or injured.

While the newspaper suggests that the findings are directly relevant to children’s health, this was not investigated by the researchers, though they did suggest their results may have some application in the management of inflammatory skin disorders. At this early stage, however, this is speculation and much more research is needed.

-----------------------------------------------

And here's a link to more general press coverage:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6630394/Children-should-be-allowed-to-play-in-the-dirt-new-research-suggests.html


Roll, roll, roll in the dirt all the live long day. (Hey, nothing wrong with mixing up a couple of ditties.)

[tekisui]

1. The saying in my neighborhood was 'God made dirt and dirt won't hurt'.

I regularly renewed my bacteria from dirt, still do in fact.

[kestrel91316]

2. I keep saying bacteria are our friends, and people on DU keep

laughing at me and saying how wrong I am.........

[paulsby]

9. you are of course right

during most of our evolutionary history, we got dirty, played in the dirt and lived with it surrounding us.

it's just common sense.

similar studies show that kids who grow up around farm animals, and pigs in specific, also get immune system benefits.givign

another example of common sense: in our state of nature, we occasionally bled.

now research has shown that giving a little blood periodically is healthy, especially for men (women naturally lose some blood every month). it helps, among other things, to lower the levels of heavy metals in the blood.

kids at play get occasional bumps and scrapes but in our sanitized society, those that don't play sports or play can go years without bleeding

[kestrel91316]

13. I didn't know about the growing up around pigs bit, lol. Probably explains

why experimental infection with porcine roundworms tends to temporarily cure Crohn's disease in people.......

[paulsby]

15. it's fascinating stuff

and makes sense. we evolved surrounded by nature. nature is not the enemy.

well, unless it's a hungry lion or something...

this article is awesome
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/461841_6

Farm exposure in utero may protect against asthma, hay fever and eczema
http://erj.ersjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/3/603?HITS=10&sortspec=relevance&hits=10&maxtoshow=&andorexactfulltext=and&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT&fulltext=farm&searchid=1&RESULTFORMAT=

[Doremus]

3. Friends of ours used to insist their kids were scrupulously clean ALL THE TIME.

No playing in the dirt. No sitting on the sand at the beach.
Take numerous showers daily. Even their pediatrician told their mother to stop washing them so much because their skin was dried out and raw. Mother couldn't stop (OCD I think).

They suffered from allergies and other ailments much more than normal.

[HuckleB]

6. Oh man. They would not have approved of us.

Our three-year-old has been backpacking all over the western US since he was six months old. Dirt is just the reality for him.

[tridim]

4. I've also heard that nose picking and eating during childhood is beneficial.

There has to be some evolutionary reason that children eat their boogers.

[HuckleB]

5. I suspect that we all swallow a good deal of our boogers, at least while we sleep.

[Chemisse]

20. We certainly swallow a whole lot of our mucous

And boogers are just dried up mucous.

Think of all the body resources that go into making mucous. Swallowing it conserves that material.

[dflprincess]

7. Years ago "Nova" did a program about polio

It actually began to get more serious as hygene improved. The polio germ lives in dirt and before running water in homes became common people were exposed to the germ more often and would often have very mild cases of polio that were diagnosed as something else but they did develop immunity.

[Chemisse]

21. I never knew that!

Like a natural immunization.

[FirstLight]

8. My sister is a gremaphobe

you could eat off the bathroom floors...all the time, I swear.
(how she keeps a WHITE bathroom THAT clean is beyond me...)
...abut her family is ALWAYS sick, too.... is over-cleanliness to blame?

I may not be a grunge, but I ain;t a neat freak either. And my kids are always dirty! lol
And we have only needed antibiotics a couple times in the past few years, whereas my sis's kids seem to be on something all the time, whether for allergies or sniffles or SOMETHING.

What's even wierder?
My family has an autoimmune disorder, and my sister and I both have it. I seem to be able to keep my flares under better control than her as well. But if you also look at our different eating habits as well as the clean factor, it could be either, or both.

Hehe, but I have another theory too... your first kid, you are all paranoid and wipe them constantly "oh NO, precious got dirty.",
by the time you have your third, you say: "let them eat worms!"

:rofl:

[notadmblnd]

10. I let mine eat worms

he is my first and only born. He wanted to know what they tasted like, so I told him to try it.

[FirstLight]

14. right ON!!!

My first was very particular, he used to come to me as a toddler when he would get his hands dirty and beg to be cleaned...the last 2, could care LESS! :rofl:

[notadmblnd]

16. Mine knew to keep his hand out of the real icky stuff.

I had to wipe his butt till he was five. The day he turned five he took over but I can still see and hear him in my mind bent over in the bathroom, butt sticking up in the air and yelling out "someone come wipe my butt!"

[Warpy]

11. We were designed to live in dirt

It's only noxious in places like operating rooms. You want to keep those as free of bacteria of all types as possible.

Expecting to raise our children without ever allowing them to play in dirt and eat some of it is not just unrealistic, it's probably dangerous.

[mopinko]

12. my father always said- sterilize, sterilize, sterilize, and in the meantime

the kid is in the living room, eating out of the potted plant.
ahead of his time in many ways, he was.

there are theories about this related to autoimmune diseases. chron's disease, they say, may be linked to clean water. the whole thing makes a lot of sense to me.

[kestrel91316]

17. Yep. Our bodies must have some exposure to the "enemies" in order to

recognize them.

[mopinko]

18. you mean like- HORROR!!!!!

VACCINATIONS!!!!

[kestrel91316]

19. Exactly.

:evilgrin: