[HN Gopher] Mud boosts the immune system
___________________________________________________________________
Mud boosts the immune system
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 168 points
Date : 2022-10-15 09:51 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Kudotap wrote:
| chrischen wrote:
| When I was a kid (in China), before boarding my flight to the US,
| my relatives packed some balls of dirt in my carry on for me to
| make "tea" from.
| tiku wrote:
| Walk barefoot more. There was an article on here a while back
| that also claimed it helped. Because you get in contact with
| dirt/ground.
| j-bos wrote:
| But do be careful of domedtic fecal matter.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Domestic fecal matter? Someone shits on the floor in my
| house, and I step into it? Yes that could present some
| problems, such as slipping on the stairs.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| What's the mechanism here? Doesn't the thick skin on the
| bottoms of your feet prevent and microorganisms from entering
| your body? That's what it's for after all.
| abledon wrote:
| grounding your electrochemical system 'soup' of cells
| rekrsiv wrote:
| Electrons:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3265077/
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| In at least one case, worms.
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/parasitic-worms-
| may-...
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Hemlinths enter the body through contaminated food and
| water, not through the feet. They're also pretty bad for
| you, and can make you very sick for years.
| mustafabisic1 wrote:
| This explains a lot about my childhood when my parents would just
| let me be outside all the time.
|
| Also it reminds me of an interesting conclusion somebody had here
| on HN that it's weird how we insctinctively know how each thing
| around us would taste.
|
| Like if I told you do you know how the door would taste if you
| licked it. A taste would come in your mind.
|
| Fascinating stuff. This article is definitely going into my next
| week's newsletter for remote working parents
| (https://thursdaydigest.com/). Even though most of my subscribers
| are from HN.
| tzs wrote:
| Babies offered free choice from a variety of foods seem to
| automatically know how to pick in a way to get a good balanced
| diet [1].
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626509/
| tartoran wrote:
| Back in Eastern europe, usually in the summer and by the seaside
| or in an usual sunbathing setting, older people with various
| ailments such as rheumatism cover themselves in black mud and
| keep it on for hours then wash it off. Some of them are also
| practicing nudism as well, this part is quite funny. I never knew
| if there was an actual benefit from it, and still am somewhat
| skeptical though I'd give it a try if I had the chance and need.
| Could as well be a bucket list item. At the same time I think
| we've lost some ancient treatments this way and when it comes to
| the immune system, seems to me it's on the better side if it's
| stimulated rather than overprotected by isolation from exposure
| sources. I have a kid in preK and they're sick quite frequently
| and it's quite a normal thing.
| voisin wrote:
| Does the length of time it covers you matter? It would seem to
| me that leaving it on for shorter periods but getting more
| diversity by having more applications of new mud would be more
| effective.
|
| Babies are born from a sterile environment and apparently
| passing through the birth canal and then immediately being
| placed on the mother for skin-to-skin contact, even if only for
| a few minutes, is sufficient to populate the microbiome. But
| perhaps that's because it is a clean slate being populated.
| tartoran wrote:
| I actually found its more widespread in use, here's the wiki
| entry for mud bathing:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_bath
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| There are various bacteria that stay within our gut and help us
| process fibre that comes from mud and nature generally, we have a
| symbiotic relationship with at least thousands of bacteria.
|
| The more interesting and potentially very medically relevant
| presence in mud is Phages, viruses for Bacteria. There are
| various bacteria our body can not clear and that are also
| antibiotic resistant and a treatment for them would be immensely
| beneficial. Yet nature has a phage for all of them, millions of
| different ones and they are very effective if you can find the
| right one.
| robk wrote:
| Really fascinating area of science. They were ignored in lieu
| of antibiotics in the post war forming of big Pharma (except
| for pockets like France and Russia). Startups are working in
| this space now https://www.phagos.org/
| Raydovsky wrote:
| You forgot Georgia. They are way ahead of Russia when it
| comes to phages
| ch4s3 wrote:
| We'll phages present their own issues. Antibiotics were cheap
| and easy to mass produce.
| manmal wrote:
| Are you talking about bacteriophages? What issues do they
| present?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _various bacteria our body can not clear and that are also
| antibiotic resistant and a treatment for them would be
| immensely beneficial_
|
| Do phages attack human cells? I thought they were a pest to
| bacteria.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| No they are very specific in what they attack, you can have a
| phage for killing E Coli but it will only kill a very precise
| subspecies of E Coli. They are so specialised there are many
| millions, maybe even billions of them and they ignore
| anything that isn't their target.
|
| This what makes them amazing and awful at the same time. It
| could take a while to identify the right phage for a bacteria
| that is killing a patient and you have to wait and see if it
| works. On the other hand when you find the right thing you
| can destroy the bacteria without hurting the patient and
| without destroying other bacteria in the process. Unlike
| antibiotics you are not going to destroy you microbiome with
| the right phage.
| m3047 wrote:
| You can get packets of bacillus subtilis at farm stores,
| labeled "Sav-A-Chick". You can add it to your chickens' water;
| it helps with diarrhea.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| kibwen wrote:
| I grew up in the countryside and the article's conclusion of
| "let your kids eat some dirt" has always been rather
| anecdotally obvious to me; I tromped through a lot of mud and
| unwisely put a lot of weird things in my mouth and I seem to
| have a much more robust immune system than my peers who didn't.
|
| That said, "growing up in the countryside" isn't itself
| necessary. You just need to grow up with some decent nature
| within walking distance. Yes, many urban environments have
| unwisely paved over all their green spaces with parking lots
| and high rises. But that's not a necessary feature of a city;
| look for cities that value green spaces, e.g. Pittsburgh's
| Frick Park/Schenley Park/Hazelwood Greenway triangle provides
| ample opportunity for getting lost in unmanicured woods.
|
| Part of what gets my goat is the idea that humans _only_
| evolved to live in bucolic, pastoral locales. Humans have been
| banding together in cities for 6,000 years now; we have plenty
| of adaptations for urban living (such as, ironically, disease
| resistance; the notion that city living is _cleaner_ than
| country living is a modern phenomenon).
| oldcigarette wrote:
| To your point every creek in pittsburgh is still "shit creek"
| or loaded with amd in the spring. I wouldn't eat any mud -
| maybe some dirt up on a hill.
| starkd wrote:
| I think it was Steven Pinker who claimed that we were best
| evolved for life on the savanah, bucolic pastoral type
| settings with wide open fields. Settings that are easy on the
| eyes and provide a good line of sight while also providing
| corners to duck for cover. A setting which has mostly been
| replicated by the suburbs. True that we have adapted to live
| in cities fairly well, but even a few thousand years I would
| think would be too short for evolution.
| not2b wrote:
| While this may or may not be the case, Pinker is a linguist
| and has neither the expertise nor evidence to back up this
| assertion. I don't think modern American suburbs resemble
| the African savanna. But the chaparral terrain on much of
| the California coast where I often hike is a lot closer to
| it.
| starkd wrote:
| He is a psycho-linguist and his field is evolutionary
| psychology. He never claimed a complete resemblance
| between the savannah and suburbia, but just that both
| contain many of the key features which would make it
| highly suitable for the species, at least from an
| evolutionary perspective.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _That said, "growing up in the countryside" isn't itself
| necessary. You just need to grow up with some decent nature
| within walking distance. Yes, many urban environments have
| unwisely paved over all their green spaces with parking lots
| and high rises. But that's not a necessary feature of a city;
| look for cities that value green spaces, e.g. Pittsburgh's
| Frick Park/Schenley Park/Hazelwood Greenway triangle provides
| ample opportunity for getting lost in unmanicured woods._
|
| I can scarcely imagine city parks providing the country
| upbringing experience of running off into the woods after
| breakfast and not coming home until dinner, every day of
| summer until school season started again. Visiting the park
| for a few hours once or twice a week just isn't the same.
| kibwen wrote:
| I encourage you to visit the places I've mentioned if
| you're ever in Pittsburgh. They're not "parks" in the sense
| of mowed lawns and baseball fields (Pittsburgh has lots of
| those too, though). These parks contain legitimate woods in
| the heart of the city, Frick most especially.
| [deleted]
| heynowheynow wrote:
| Somehow, I suspect a mud resort is behind this.
| starkd wrote:
| Perhaps. Sort of makes you want to go out and dig a hole.
| heynowheynow wrote:
| Seriously. Claim Elvis, Madonna, and Oprah visited. And it
| has indescribable cleansing properties. Wellness is the
| easiest place to make money because it's selling sweet little
| lies people want to hear.
| starkd wrote:
| Plus who doesn't like digging a good hole in the ground.
| yboris wrote:
| When you visit the page, the title is "How mud boosts your immune
| system" -- but isn't all the evidence and discussion about
| _children_?
|
| As far as I understand, this exposure to mud / bacteria is
| particularly beneficial during the first three years (maybe a few
| more years; probably not much consensus there) and there isn't
| evidence to think people over 18 would benefit from continued
| exposure (though gardening seems to benefit health; and perhaps
| those who have gone through antibiotic treatment might benefit -
| though I know of no such evidence, never looked).
|
| Could anyone who has more familiarity with the topic comment? :)
| pessimizer wrote:
| > When you visit the page, the title is "How mud boosts your
| immune system" -- but isn't all the evidence and discussion
| about children?
|
| You wouldn't be able to find enough people to test if you
| focused on adults who played in the dirt and mud now, but _didn
| 't_ when they were children. I don't think there's any reason
| to doubt that it would work on adults, although I wouldn't
| assume it would, either.
| m3047 wrote:
| All I have is anecdata.
|
| Early years were extremely urban; still have allergies; learned
| some things about managing them as an adult. Had a resurgence in
| autoimmune issues a few years ago (triggered by an initial
| misdiagnosis); declined doing allergy shots again, absolutely no
| doubt in my mind that my improvement since would be claimed as a
| win by allopathic practitioners if I'd gone that route.
|
| I used to spend a lot of time in the woods doing extreme stuff;
| I've bled all over the place, even got some nasty puncture
| wounds, never got infected; scuffed my hand in an urban park and
| got blood poisoning.
|
| I eat produce and fruit from my own grounds. I hug chickens. I
| pick up and dispose of dead things (carefully). Yes, I've had a
| tetanus shot in recent memory.
|
| Pretty sure I had COVID early on, barely noticed it. Or it could
| have been the lisinopril (blood pressure issue also stemming from
| the misdiagnosis, although it too is improving). I can only say
| "pretty sure" because I've asked repeatedly for an antibody test
| and the doctors have refused.
|
| Worked for biotechs, had safety training. Wore N95s throughout
| COVID indoors most places, taking care when removing them;
| sanitize my hands; wash them when I get home; avoid public
| restrooms if at all possible; have only eaten at restaurants
| twice since COVID started. In summary, I take measures which are
| probably half-assed, but I'm very consistent.
|
| Haven't had the "flu" either. Moved my annual physical to June
| starting this year, which is the yearly minimum for ILI around
| here; the physician had a studied "no comment" about this.
|
| When I was at the clinic in February to set this up, while I was
| sitting in the waiting room the linen service employee came to
| pick up the wash wearing dirty work gloves and nobody paid
| attention; after five minutes I got up and took some sani wipes
| to the door handles; then they noticed.
| dmix wrote:
| Is the point of your comment that exposure and being active
| outdoors helps build your resistance.
|
| Also you sound a bit over cautious. Are you over 50? Otherwise
| you don't really need a yearly physical. At least according to
| my doctor.
| jvican wrote:
| A relevant article arguing the opposite can be found in
| Elizabeth's blog: "Eating Dirt is Basically Made Up"
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JzJcgsKBf35FeuZSD/eating-dir...
| pessimizer wrote:
| Not really. Your reference is against _" eating dirt"_ which
| seems to have become a popular pop-sci article shorthand for
| other stuff about sanitation that she says has plenty of
| backing. I was a filthy kid, but I didn't intentionally eat
| dirt (that would be weird), I ate with dirty hands.
| chihuahua wrote:
| I'm told I used to eat dirt (sand, soil, etc) as a child,
| which upset my brother. It seems to have worked out for me -
| I have no allergies and can digest anything and everything,
| in contrast with people who proclaim that carbs make them
| bloat, they get tired after eating sugar, etc.
|
| I still get a good dose of dirt from frequent bike rides on
| dusty logging roads, where the occasional passing car stirs
| up dust clouds that end up in my mouth and nose.
| noduerme wrote:
| I love to hear about dirt "teaming" with microorganisms. They
| make a great pair!
| tigen wrote:
| It's all fun and games until you get the brain-eating amoeba.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Not for the amoeba!
| dqpb wrote:
| Or lead
| logicalmonster wrote:
| This seems to be a unique period in history to test the idea with
| a large sample size.
|
| I'm not sure how this could easily be measured while taking into
| account every variable, but I'd love to see good studies done
| over the long-term based on how people are reacting to living
| with Covid-19.
|
| Due to a high state of fear, a portion of people seem resigned to
| living the rest of their lives wearing masks/gloves/face shields
| everywhere in public, very frequently cleaning themselves and
| their living environments to kill every possible germ, washing
| their hands more frequently than might be reasonably necessary,
| avoiding many public interactions, etc. If humans are better off
| with some reasonable amount of exposure to the normal bacteria in
| nature, the fearful people might end up with worse off immune
| systems due to this lack of normal exposure.
| [deleted]
| mush_room wrote:
| I'm not providing a reference with this comment but I've heard
| numerous times that at the time of the polio epidemic it was a
| common observation that kids raised in "rough" conditions, i.e.
| on the streets and exposed to all the insalubrity that goes with
| it, were handling polio infections much better than kids raised
| with modern hygiene. The so-called "hygiene hypothesis"...
| raydev wrote:
| I don't see how one can conclusively say rough conditions
| improved immune systems.
|
| What rules out the theory that those who survived were born
| with superior immune systems, or that they were missing traits
| that would make them susceptible to severe illness?
| [deleted]
| o_____________o wrote:
| > insalubrity
|
| great word
| metadat wrote:
| > Noun. insalubrity (usually uncountable, plural
| insalubrities) The condition of being insalubrious;
| unhealthiness, unwholesomeness.
| pengaru wrote:
| You've reminded me of this George Carlin rant:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo
|
| Edit: Usually I regret scrolling down to youtube comments, not
| this time:
|
| > This is not a comedy, this is a TED talk.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _I 'm not providing a reference with this comment_
|
| Here is the CDC saying it:
|
| > _Before the 18th century, polioviruses probably circulated
| widely. Initial infections with at least one type probably
| occurred in early infancy, when transplacentally acquired
| maternal antibodies were high and protected infants from
| infection-causing paralysis._
|
| > _In the immediate prevaccine era, during the first half of
| the 20th century, improved sanitation resulted in less frequent
| exposure and increased the age of primary infection, resulting
| in large epidemics with high numbers of deaths. The incidence
| dramatically decreased after the introduction of inactivated
| polio vaccine (IPV) in 1955 and continued to decline following
| oral polio vaccine (OPV) introduction in 1961. From the more
| than 21,000 paralytic cases reported in 1952, only 2,525 cases
| were reported in 1960 and 61 cases in 1965._
|
| > _Poliovirus Secular Trends in the United Status:_
|
| > * _Before the 18th century, polioviruses probably circulated
| widely_
|
| > * _In immediate prevaccine era, improved sanitation resulted
| in less frequent exposure and increased age of primary
| infection, resulting in large epidemics with high death count_
|
| > * _Incidence dramatically decreased following inactivated
| polio vaccine (IPV) introduction in 1955_
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/polio.html
| triplesec wrote:
| Does this take into account the fact that before hygiene,
| germ theory and the beginning of the C20th, most infants died
| early? Dying of these pathogens as an infant is a reliable
| way not to catch them later in life.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| It has nothing to do with mortality rates generally, and is
| specifically about polio. Polio generally wasn't killing
| very young infants, most of them were protected by
| antibodies from their mothers.
|
| My guess is that sanitary conditions during infancy were
| still a net positive overall. Just not with respect to
| polio specifically. To protect children from polio you
| either need vaccination with dead/weak polio, or exposure
| to polio as an infant when they had protection from
| maternal antibodies. Either way teaches the immune system
| to fight polio, but without either of those the risk of
| polio rises with age. An adult who catches polio is about
| 10x more likely to die than a child (not infant) who
| catches it.
| addingadimensio wrote:
| > * In immediate prevaccine era, improved sanitation resulted
| in less frequent exposure and increased age of primary
| infection, resulting in large epidemics with high death count
|
| How do you suss out the difference between increasing
| sanitation vs vaccination in a time where sanitation is on an
| upwards trajectory? Polio is spread from feces. Eventually
| people stopped drinking contaminated water. full stop.
| User23 wrote:
| I've heard that poliomyelitis (the specific nerve damage) can
| be also caused by other things than the poliovirus. Most
| notably certain pesticides that are fortunately no longer in
| widespread use.
|
| It's hard to find non kooky references, but the notion of
| environmental poisons in the gut somehow transferring to the
| lower spinal cord sounds at least plausible.
| [deleted]
| mush_room wrote:
| This wasn't in infants, children of age to play in the
| streets.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| No, it's only in infants. If a child old enough to walk
| around is exposed to polio for the first time (no
| vaccination or exposure as an infant), they'll have no
| protection and have a serious risk of being crippled. The
| sanitary conditions in which infants were kept in the
| decades preceding polio vaccination prevented them from
| being exposed to polio during their short window of
| protection, and as soon as they left the crib they were at
| serious risk.
|
| It's specifically the sanitation of the living condition of
| infants that had the effect, not the general sanitation
| level of society. Polio was still circulating through the
| population outside during this time period, but infants
| were shielded from it during their short window of
| protection.
| mush_room wrote:
| ok, but the observation I was referring to was talking
| about those children, and how they tended do to much
| better when exposed to polio; maybe that's a complete
| fabrication, I don't have a reference on hand
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I think you probably heard a corruption of the truth
| through a game of telephone. Playing outside never gave
| children any protection from polio, but unsanitary living
| conditions for infants did.
| mush_room wrote:
| You're right, after researching, mentions of the hygiene
| hypothesis all attribute the epidemic to decreases in
| exposure in infancy, and possibly decreases in exposure
| in the mother as well.
|
| But I did find where I got that from, for whatever it's
| worth, George Carlin:
|
| > When I was a little boy in New York City in the 1940s,
| we swam in the Hudson River, and it was filled with raw
| sewage. OK? We swam in raw sewage -- you know, to cool
| off. And at that time, the big fear was polio. Thousands
| of kids died from polio every year. But you know
| something? In my neighborhood, no one ever got polio. No
| one. Ever. You know why? 'Cause we swam in raw sewage.
|
| (from https://www.businessinsider.com/george-carlin-why-
| we-need-to...)
|
| [edit]: I do wonder if, because I have no reason to doubt
| it's true, what being exposed to sewage-infested water
| did is provide some sort of vaccination, by means of
| exposure to very low levels - insufficient for infection
| - of pathogens including polio. After all, that kind of
| analogue process is what early vaccination was.
|
| [edit 2]: that might still be completely off, I mean,
| reading about it I understand that at the time, 10x as
| many children would die by accidents, and 3x from cancer.
| 323 wrote:
| I think the "hygiene hypothesis" is mostly related to
| allergies, not infections per se.
|
| Kids in countries with "rough" conditions have a much higher
| mortality than kids in the developed world. I think it's pretty
| well accepted that the hygiene revolution decreased child (and
| adult) mortality a lot. That's not to say it didn't create
| other problems, but surely on net a "cleaner" world is better.
| Nobody is advocating not washing your hands before you eat.
|
| So while "tougher raised" kids probably have a better immune
| system, the risk associated with pathogen exposure grow even
| more dramatically, such that they surpass the benefit.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > So while "tougher raised" kids probably have a better
| immune system, the risk associated with pathogen exposure
| grow even more dramatically, such that they surpass the
| benefit.
|
| Maybe, but
|
| 1) the younger you are, the better you can deal with a lot of
| these infections, it's when you're older and you haven't seen
| them that they become a problem, and
|
| 2) the kind of exposure you get from being filthy is not
| going to be as concentrated as most of the exposures that
| make you sick e.g. from other people. A tiny exposure from a
| bit of dirt is going to take forever to grow into something
| that will hurt you, so your immune system has plenty of time
| to figure it out before it gets there. Then when somebody
| sneezes in your face, you've had the immunity without ever
| being aware of the sickness.
| tootie wrote:
| Yeah this is the failing of hygiene hypothesis. Do kids
| raised in dirt or near animals have stronger immune responses
| than kids raised in a sanitized modern life? Probably. Do
| they have better long term outcomes in terms of overall
| health and longevity? Very unlikely and certainly never
| proven.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| We could give birth to more children and let them die. Those
| who survive will be stronger. People removed natural
| selection from the equation with children healthcare. It
| could be a wrong direction for humanity.
| mush_room wrote:
| I think both can be true, question of balance.
|
| Concerning kids exposed to those pathogens in the developing
| world, we have to consider that malnutrition is a major
| contributor.
| generalizations wrote:
| Or, said another way - it was harder to survive being raised
| in those 'rough' conditions, but if you did, you were
| tougher. Survival of the fittest.
| Klinky wrote:
| One of the failings of the simple concept of "survival of
| the fittest" is that survival just means you pass on genes,
| your quality of life might be poor up til then or you die
| shortly after, and fitness is towards the environment you
| grew up in, you may fail completely at adapting to an
| environmental shift later on.
|
| The concept only goes so far, and people need to be wary of
| it being used to potentially justify that harsh living
| conditions are okay or "better". It can come off as an
| appeal to nature.
| Hextinium wrote:
| I think the previous comment was referring to that the
| people with weak immune systems/severe allergies don't
| make it to adulthood. And so of course in clean
| environments where they survive there is a higher
| population of people with allergies.
| Klinky wrote:
| Only in very severe disease would that be the case. Many
| can become maimed & debilitated instead of just
| dying(e.g. Polio), and even those who come through
| "unscathed", the damage may just be hidden. You can see
| this with a lot of diseases like HPV,
| herpes(chickenpox/shingles) or hepatitis, where severe
| disease manifests well into adulthood. Many diseases have
| adapted to not kill the host and evade the immune system.
|
| You also may just have chronic re-exposure or a failure
| to clear pathogens, which can be detrimental to an entire
| population. An example would be worms that don't get
| cleared by the immune system and for which the person is
| constantly being re-exposed to. You end up with cognitive
| and physical issues that don't kill, but reduce a
| person's quality of life.
|
| Some of the hygiene hypothesis is around the immune
| system amping up its response due to parasites, and
| without the parasites present to attack it turns against
| the body itself. This is kind of what I am talking about.
| The people with amped up immune systems possibly handled
| parasite infections better when they were a common
| problem, but in a society where most people no longer
| live with chronic parasite infections, it manifests as
| allergies/immune disease. Living with chronic parasite
| infection is certainly not on the top of anyone's list to
| do, though helminthic therapy is something some people
| have tried to fix their allergy issues.
|
| It is also incredibly hard to determine who has truly
| lived a "pure" lifestyle free from interference of modern
| conveniences, so that evolution can truly be the driving
| factor in their life. Civilization has disrupted
| evolution for millennia by now, we can't just look back a
| few generations and claim they were a "tougher breed" who
| were better because of their purer natural lifestyle.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Doesn't matter, had sex.
| DOsinga wrote:
| Not the game then
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| It was all healthy until polyfluoroalkyl contamination spread
| around the globe, and now rainwater is toxic and so is the soil.
| richardhod wrote:
| And in other news, bears seen defecating in silvan locations /s
|
| This is definitely true, but not exactly news to most people
| shultays wrote:
| It is probably not as known to as you think. Lots of parents
| out there would put their kids in sterile rooms if they were
| able to. Idea of their kids playing in mud would faint a couple
| parents out there. Most uses antibiotics on their kids with
| slightest fever
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Lots of parents out there would put their kids in sterile
| rooms if they were able to._
|
| It's pathological microphobia
| sp332 wrote:
| It's developed from an early age when schoolchildren are
| taught that all germs are evil.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| > Most uses antibiotics on their kids with slightest fever
|
| People in my vicinity generally understand that antibiotics
| don't help viral infections. What doctors are they getting
| these antibiotics from? I doubt this claim.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| Maybe younger generation knows this. I know some older
| people who keep stash of antibiotics at home and pop those
| pills for almost everything.
| shultays wrote:
| At least in Turkey, such parents find new doctors if their
| old ones does not give them the antibiotics they want.
| Doctors either dont care or are greedy enough to keep such
| patients at the expense of fucking up theirs or their kids
| immune system for life
| pdpi wrote:
| I'm not sure it's as true now as it was 20 years ago, but I
| do remember seeing several campaigns raising awareness of
| the risks of antibiotic abuse.
|
| At any rate, you're not necessarily contradicting GP. You
| can both know that antibiotics don't help with viral
| infections and also believe that antibiotic use is
| harmless. Put the two together, and giving your kids
| antibiotics "just in case" seems perfectly reasonable.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| But in the US at least antibiotics require a prescription
| from doctors. So you need the doctors to play along, too,
| and in my own experience I've never received antibiotics
| unnecessarily
| arcticfox wrote:
| This is true in the US. In Brazil, my experience is that
| people expect a doctor to give medicine no matter what,
| even if it's not warranted.
|
| Major cultural difference to the point where Brazilians
| feel like American doctors aren't even treating them.
| pdpi wrote:
| You can easily end up with leftovers from a prescription
| if stop taking them midway through the course once you're
| feeling better. Those left overs can then be used to
| self-medicate.
|
| I could speculate on how else it happens, but the
| important part is that it _does_ happen, and e.g. the
| Mayo clinic says:
|
| > According to the Centers for Disease Control and
| Prevention, about one-third of antibiotic use in people
| is not needed nor appropriate.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-
| health...
| richardhod wrote:
| .. and this is one of the biggest sources of antibiotic
| resistance: people not finishing the course of
| antibiotics becasue they 'feel better now', rather than
| eliminating the pathogen so it can't gain resistance.
| Generally, there should never be leftover antibiotics.
| pdpi wrote:
| As I understand it, there's been some recent studies that
| suggest it might be better to stop early (which is
| interesting, but that hasn't become standard practice, so
| I'll just keep doing what the actual professionals tell
| me to)
| hk__2 wrote:
| > This is definitely true, but not exactly news to most people
|
| A lot of people believe it's true, but having a proof of it is
| newsworthy. This is an old theory and there's still no 100%
| scientific consensus on whether it's true or not [1][2].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
|
| [2]: https://www.verywellfamily.com/hygiene-and-cleanliness-
| won-t...
| richardhod wrote:
| I do take my rather glib comment back, with apologies to the
| readers here, I know better than that. Indeed, the Hygiene
| Hypothesis is misused a lot, and which I was actively looking
| up post-comment. It's the reason a lot of people are -
| erroneously - trying to infect themselves with COVID-19, to
| prorect themselves from later catching... the very same
| harmful pathogen.
|
| See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5320962/
| mr_mitm wrote:
| > According to recent research, the dirt outside is teaming with
| friendly microorganisms that can train the immune system and
| build resilience to a range of illnesses, including allergies,
| asthma and even depression and anxiety.
|
| In that light, does it make sense to speak of "boosting the
| immune system"? If I understand correctly, allergies and asthma
| are the result of overly active immune system. Depression and
| anxiety are completely unrelated to the immune system as far as I
| know. So if anything, playing in mud _dampens_ the immune system
| of children, albeit in a good way.
|
| Also, the title of the article neglects to mention that this only
| applies to children.
| jetbooster wrote:
| It was my understanding that in those cases the immune system
| overreacts because it hasn't been correctly calibrated by being
| properly challenged.
|
| It's not that it's too strong, it's that it lashes out at
| things that aren't actually threats because it's ability to
| recognise what is and isn't a threat is diminished
| mr_mitm wrote:
| Yes, "calibrating" is the word that also just jumped into my
| mind. That would have been a much better fit than "boosting".
| xeromal wrote:
| An additional datapoint I remember reading is that humans for
| so long has worms and other parasites that dulled the immune
| system that our immune system is actually hyperactive because
| we no longer have those parasites to repress it.
| NickM wrote:
| _Depression and anxiety are completely unrelated to the immune
| system as far as I know._
|
| They are definitely related. Many studies have found links
| between inflammation and both anxiety and depression. There's
| even a Wikipedia page about the depression/inflammation link:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_and_immune_function
| oblak wrote:
| Not saying it's the same but here it is: I lose small patches
| of beard during prolonged
| unhappiness/depression/anxiety/stress
| kaezon wrote:
| This probably doen't apply to everything, but I did read that
| the lack of early exposure to peanuts had actually increased
| the number of individuals who developed peanut allergies. I
| found a 2017 NIH post which reccomends early exposure to helo
| prevent the alergy from developing:
| https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2017/01/10/peanut-allergy-earl...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This article has a blind spot large enough to drive a truck
| through, related to the author's apparent belief that we all live
| in some kind of bucolic pre-industrial society. Take this claim:
|
| > "People who grow up on farms are generally less likely to
| develop asthma, allergies, or auto-immune disorders like Crohn's
| disease - thanks, apparently, to their childhood exposure to a
| more diverse range of organisms in the rural environment that had
| encouraged more effective regulation of the immune system."
|
| The vast majority of farming in the USA and Britain is
| industrialized and relies heavily on regular application of
| pesticides and herbicides in the fields. Animal farming is
| centered on factory farms where animals are kept in close
| quarters and given antibiotics and hormones to prevent disease
| outbreaks and increase growth rates. The fecese and urine from
| these operations stink for miles around.
|
| Childhood exposure to such environments results in everything
| from asthma to neurological damage - see Parkinsons relationship
| to organophosphorous pesticides, say. Another concrete example:
| methyl bromide in the strawberry fields of California:
|
| https://www.ewg.org/research/heavy-methyl-bromide-use-near-c...
|
| That's the industrial agriculture reality, so packing your kids
| off to such farms to get their dose of 'good natural microbes' is
| inadvisable. It's just half the equation, however, as other kinds
| of industrial activity have loaded up soils with all kinds of
| chemical contaminants, from heavy metals (sometimes radioactive)
| to persistent organics with negative health effects. For example,
| anyone living downwind of an oil refinery or coal power plant, or
| around a uranium mine etc., should thing twice about galavanting
| through the local mudholes. Richmond, in California downwind from
| Chevron and other refineries, is a case example:
|
| https://www.ehn.org/pollution-poverty-richmond-2645503359.ht...
|
| Even without the modern industrial-related issues, historically
| animal farming has been linked to all kinds of parasite issues,
| such as the hookworm pandemic that afflicted the American South
| for many decades (linked to pig farms). The 'get in touch with
| nature on a nice organic farm' theme should be tempered by such
| realities, i.e.:
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-so...
|
| However, direct interactions with relatively pristine natural
| environments are likely great for kids (and adults), and the
| notion that ultra-sterile equals ultra-healthy doesn't make any
| sense either.
| dominotw wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11597666/
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Asthma is a bit more complicated than that, and the
| urban/rural breakdown seems highly site-specific.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23625129/
|
| > "Although evidence shows that differences in the prevalence
| of asthma do exist between urban and rural dwellers in many
| parts of the world, including in developed countries, data
| are inadequate to evaluate the extent to which different
| pollutant exposures contribute to asthma morbidity and
| severity of asthma between urban and rural areas."
| frankthedog wrote:
| You're right that the vast majority of our food supply comes
| from industrial ag. There are also many many people with small
| family farms, maybe a few chickens, a sheep or goat and
| vegetable gardens. This is the beneficial environment. Both
| small scale and large scale exist.
| telesilla wrote:
| >The vast majority of farming in the USA and Britain is
| industrialised
|
| Where I grew up farming was not industrial to the extent it has
| become, and I never met any single person with allergies until
| I moved to the city, neither did we experience pandemics. I
| known this is not just my experience. Isn't there some value,
| to see how children grew up with access to grass and dirt, yet
| also to sanitary conditions inside the home, hospitals and
| schools? Perhaps it was due to the period of my childhood and
| the smaller nature of farming, plus it was a fairly wealthy
| part of the world considering.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I grew up on a pretty old, small farm that mostly had some
| animals and garden plots. I have asthma and severe allergies.
| I'm especially allergic to horses and dogs, which we had in
| abundance.
|
| I also spent about 20 weekends a year camping from about age 10
| to 18. I can't say it did anything for my immune system.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Sounds like genetics?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Probably not enough information. For example, exposure to
| diesel emissions is closely correlated with childhood
| asthma, and this may or may not be an issue on different
| farms (tractors not being very clean-running typically).
| Some farmland is in very dusty regions as well. Hence,
| growing up on a farm might or might not be as bad as
| growing up right next to a major freeway or oil refinery:
|
| > "In a study funded in part by EPA, researchers from Johns
| Hopkins University found that children exposed to outdoor
| coarse particulate matter (PM10-2.5), were more likely to
| develop asthma and need emergency room or hospital
| treatment for it. Coarse PM can come from roadway particles
| such as brake and tire wear, and mixtures of road dust and
| metals."
|
| https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/links-between-air-
| polluti...
| ch4s3 wrote:
| No diesel and humid southern Virginia. Just
| bad(Epigenetic) luck I think.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Could be? Neither of my parents had issues.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-15 23:00 UTC)