6 ms·

Nice little article! And it confirms my anecdotal evidence, so it feels good. ;) I had a wild childhood: it happened to me to eat hamster food from his cage, e

by kome 10y ago

Nice little article! And it confirms my anecdotal evidence, so it feels good. ;) I had a wild childhood: it happened to me to eat hamster food from his cage, eating dirt, eating sand, raw tomatoes directly from the plant, drinking waters from random streams; drinking raw milk without boiling it few minutes after milking it by hand, eating raw eggs, and when I wasn't in school, like during the summer, I had one shower per week, or less... Don't worry: growing up I am back to civilization. But I have to say that I am never sick. Also during winter. I pity all those kids and their urban childhood, they will have to endure weird intolerance to random things. I am grateful to my parents. Back then growing children was still a simple thing, nowadays mothers and fathers are so scared by society.

verroq 10y ago
Let's not forget that the reason people get sick is because they are infected. Increasing population density will clearly lead to more transmissions, especially in cities.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- vbo 10y ago
  Actually, TFA makes the case that people living in developed societies are not infected early enough in life, which makes their immune systems vulnerable in the long run.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - LionessLover 10y ago
    @verroq is correct though, but that is a different subject than the one of the article. (Infectious) diseases generally spread more easily in higher population density. That's basic epidemiology, more contacts = opportunities, but it's of course more complicated than one single statement, disease spread models need a lot more variables than just population density to make useful predictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_host_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_host_density http://pai.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/PAI-1293-DISEASE_compressed.pdf http://pai.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/PAI-1293-DISEASE_c... (PDF) http://www.britannica.com/science/infectious-disease/Population-density http://www.britannica.com/science/infectious-disease/Populat...
  - Natsu 10y ago
    Well, it used to be that infant mortality was a lot bigger, some of which was probably infants dying to things they were exposed to. So we can't just ignore survivorship bias in considering these things. In general, we're probably better off with controlled, safe exposures (e.g. vaccines) than uncontrolled exposure and simply hoping we'll survive anything we catch.
kyriakos 10y ago
Lets not also forget how allergies are more common in the developed world and particularly in children living in the cities who don't generally get a lot of outside play time.
- gumby 10y ago
  > Lets not also forget how allergies are more common in the developed world and particularly in children living in the cities who don't generally get a lot of outside play time. The evidence for this is not clear. Actual research is needed, and such research is complex, expensive, and unfortunately potentially political. This article describes a very nice A/B experiment for this one autoimmune condition but makes no general claims. But outside these few cases we don't know. One factor is reporting. Do poor kids in India suffer fewer allergies or are they simply dwarfed by the other problems -- or just not reported? How do various cultures report and recognize allergies? Did feudal serfs suffer hay fever from close contact with all those grass proteins and pollens or did they develop immunity? Who knows? It does seem to appear that certain allergies (e.g. tree nut) are on the rise in the US, but the rate is not restricted to urban populations. But if kids have any symptoms they are isolated from nuts just in case, so surely the rate is overstated in the legitimate interest of keeping kids safe (though unnecessary restriction has its own problems). And other "allergies" can be fashionable (e.g. gluten response) which both helps and hurts those with legitimate problems.
  - Dr_tldr 10y ago
    > But outside these few cases we don't know. One factor is reporting. Do poor kids in India suffer fewer allergies or are they simply dwarfed by the other problems -- or just not reported? This is a great point that gets overlooked: lack of data is often taken as non-existence, even implicitly. When the average life expectancy is under 50 and there's fewer than one doctor for every 10,000 people, sneezing and occasional sinus pain doesn't even warrant a mention.
babuskov 10y ago
How old are you currently?
homero 10y ago
I used to eat raw meat. Now I never get food poisoning
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Retric 10y ago
Hospitals are not sterile, let any uncooked food, air etc. The idea that most things a germ free is really far off base. A more likely consideration is the massive amounts of pollution people deal with. Consider people lose 0.5 to 1.5 pounds of dead skin a year. That's a great food source for a huge range of micro organisms and it shows up anywhere people wonder around.
PuffinBlue 10y ago
Doesn't always work though. I grew up in the countryside and similar to you I ate dirt, wild fruit (best ever was a egg plum tree we found, though the natural laxative effect was unwelcome), drank from streams etc etc. Unfortunately, I developed an allergy to dogs, despite living with one for nearly 10 years! I left for literally 3 months and upon my return I was allergic. Also I still get colds and illnesses like most people (not regularly but I get them) so it's not conferred any super powers in that respect either. That might be because I have my own kids now as kids seem to take their disease spreading role seriously!! So, I'm sure that there are big benefits to our respective early lifestyles but they're not a panacea unfortunately.
- makmanalp 10y ago
  I'm trying to find the source, but I remember reading something about allergies appearing in people later in life, and overexposure in that case was also a factor, IIRC
  - PuffinBlue 10y ago
    And possibly something to do with antibiotics too? I had just finished a very heavy course when I was reintroduced to the dog, apparently there is some suspicion that such a scenario could have something to do with it?
Lxr 10y ago
I promise there are plenty of patients with autoimmune disease who had childhoods just like yours. I don’t want to sound hostile but “I am not sick, because I do/did X” is a) not scientifically useful and b) somewhat insulting to patients who suffer from chronic illness. The truth is everyone has risk factors for most diseases and there is still an incredibly large probabilistic element involved - some people are just lucky. This will likely change in the future as true causes are identified of course. The hygiene hypothesis is interesting but it’s far from proven and there are competing theories for many autoimmune diseases involving pathogens. The trendy attitude of “people were so healthy back when society was simple”, however, is blatantly false. People overall, by any reasonable metric, have better health today than they have even had in the past. As we invent vaccines and improve treatment options we simply forget about the burden of diseases that no longer exist.
- ellyagg 10y ago
  > not scientifically useful This isn't a peer reviewed journal, we're just a community chatting about stuff, so that's not really a germane standard. Anecdotes are a perfectly reasonable input into our personal Bayesian inference filters, since no one has all the answers yet (not even close).
  - Dr_tldr 10y ago
    But beyond being a humblebrag, it's also bordering on a just-world view of the universe that's basically superstition. Without reference to a larger dataset, the inference "I"m never sick because I played in the woods and ate weird stuff. If you get sick a lot, it's partially your fault because you didn't do that." could easily be replaced with "I'm never sick because I prayed to the right god every day. If you get sick a lot..."
    - kome 10y ago
      > it's partially your fault because you didn't do that I never implied that. If something, I said that too much pressure by society is making parents work harder, and that's not necessarily a good thing.
laen 10y ago
The "hygiene hypothesis" as you described would then prescribe that by getting "dirty" we'd improve our immune health. An interesting article was posted on HN a few months ago, a good read on "if being too clean makes us sick, why isn't getting dirty the solution." HN Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944486 Article: http://theconversation.com/if-being-too-clean-makes-us-sick-why-isnt-getting-dirty-the-solution-50572 http://theconversation.com/if-being-too-clean-makes-us-sick-...
op00to 10y ago
Do you have children now? I had a similar upbringing and similarly didn't get sick very much. However, once we had a kid, I have been sick way more and more severely. Generally immediately after my child. Do I want to protect my child from getting sick so I can stay productive, or do I want to allow him to exercise his immune system more but reduce my own health and productivity?
underwater 10y ago
I, too, spent my childhood playing outside. And I was never on antibiotics. At 30 I would have told you I was in perfect health. No allergies or asthma or anything remotely like that. Then one day my immune system got out of whack and develop chronic urticaria. (Thankfully modern medicine makes it a minor issue). My childhood didn't retroactively change during that interval. Sometimes you're lucky. And sometimes your luck suddenly runs out.
- dvtv75 10y ago
  I am the same. Always outside, lived on a farm for a few years, lived in the city. No problems with any allergies, and then, about 15 years ago, I worked in a store with photochemistry, but no ventilation. I was diagnosed with asthma some months later. I was pre-disposed to it, though. Recently, I developed a new allergy to certain types of grass. Now I end up with white dots in my eyes, and a lot of pain.
- PantaloonFlames 10y ago
  > Sometimes you're lucky. And sometimes your luck suddenly runs out. Sorry to hear about your ...urticaria. But... I don't think it's "luck".
arjie 10y ago
I did all that except the milking by hand and the rare showering (grew up in 36-40 °C place), in addition to being barefoot in the mud everywhere, and all I got for all that is a propensity for catching the flu every year. My brother grew up when we started moving out of this sort of environment (so he had 4 years less of this) and he falls sick much less than I do. My guess is that other factors dominate.
- PantaloonFlames 10y ago
  > a propensity for catching the flu every year. I don't think that a faraway childhood affects resistance to the flu, right now, significantly. Maybe to some of the maladies mentioned in the article. The fact is the immune system is an engine, just like everything else in the human body. People who exercise more get sick less often. People who exercise more get sick less severely. People who have sex more often have more immunoglobulin A. People who sleep more, get sick less often. If you get the flu more often than you'd like, start exercising more, having more sex, or sleeping better. Ideally all three.
  - arjie 10y ago
    Ha ha, I walked right into that. Well played.
lmm 10y ago
I mostly stayed inside and played games, everything was kept clean, I bathed every day, all food was prepared very strictly (mother was a professional). And I never get sick. Anecdotes prove nothing.

by kome 10y ago

verroq 10y ago

Let's not forget that the reason people get sick is because they are infected. Increasing population density will clearly lead to more transmissions, especially in cities.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
vbo 10y ago
Actually, TFA makes the case that people living in developed societies are not infected early enough in life, which makes their immune systems vulnerable in the long run.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- LionessLover 10y ago
  @verroq is correct though, but that is a different subject than the one of the article. (Infectious) diseases generally spread more easily in higher population density. That's basic epidemiology, more contacts = opportunities, but it's of course more complicated than one single statement, disease spread models need a lot more variables than just population density to make useful predictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_host_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_host_density http://pai.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/PAI-1293-DISEASE_compressed.pdf http://pai.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/PAI-1293-DISEASE_c... (PDF) http://www.britannica.com/science/infectious-disease/Population-density http://www.britannica.com/science/infectious-disease/Populat...
- Natsu 10y ago
  Well, it used to be that infant mortality was a lot bigger, some of which was probably infants dying to things they were exposed to. So we can't just ignore survivorship bias in considering these things. In general, we're probably better off with controlled, safe exposures (e.g. vaccines) than uncontrolled exposure and simply hoping we'll survive anything we catch.

kyriakos 10y ago

Lets not also forget how allergies are more common in the developed world and particularly in children living in the cities who don't generally get a lot of outside play time.

gumby 10y ago
> Lets not also forget how allergies are more common in the developed world and particularly in children living in the cities who don't generally get a lot of outside play time. The evidence for this is not clear. Actual research is needed, and such research is complex, expensive, and unfortunately potentially political. This article describes a very nice A/B experiment for this one autoimmune condition but makes no general claims. But outside these few cases we don't know. One factor is reporting. Do poor kids in India suffer fewer allergies or are they simply dwarfed by the other problems -- or just not reported? How do various cultures report and recognize allergies? Did feudal serfs suffer hay fever from close contact with all those grass proteins and pollens or did they develop immunity? Who knows? It does seem to appear that certain allergies (e.g. tree nut) are on the rise in the US, but the rate is not restricted to urban populations. But if kids have any symptoms they are isolated from nuts just in case, so surely the rate is overstated in the legitimate interest of keeping kids safe (though unnecessary restriction has its own problems). And other "allergies" can be fashionable (e.g. gluten response) which both helps and hurts those with legitimate problems.
- Dr_tldr 10y ago
  > But outside these few cases we don't know. One factor is reporting. Do poor kids in India suffer fewer allergies or are they simply dwarfed by the other problems -- or just not reported? This is a great point that gets overlooked: lack of data is often taken as non-existence, even implicitly. When the average life expectancy is under 50 and there's fewer than one doctor for every 10,000 people, sneezing and occasional sinus pain doesn't even warrant a mention.

babuskov 10y ago

How old are you currently?

homero 10y ago

I used to eat raw meat. Now I never get food poisoning

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Retric 10y ago

Hospitals are not sterile, let any uncooked food, air etc. The idea that most things a germ free is really far off base. A more likely consideration is the massive amounts of pollution people deal with. Consider people lose 0.5 to 1.5 pounds of dead skin a year. That's a great food source for a huge range of micro organisms and it shows up anywhere people wonder around.

PuffinBlue 10y ago

Doesn't always work though. I grew up in the countryside and similar to you I ate dirt, wild fruit (best ever was a egg plum tree we found, though the natural laxative effect was unwelcome), drank from streams etc etc. Unfortunately, I developed an allergy to dogs, despite living with one for nearly 10 years! I left for literally 3 months and upon my return I was allergic. Also I still get colds and illnesses like most people (not regularly but I get them) so it's not conferred any super powers in that respect either. That might be because I have my own kids now as kids seem to take their disease spreading role seriously!! So, I'm sure that there are big benefits to our respective early lifestyles but they're not a panacea unfortunately.

makmanalp 10y ago
I'm trying to find the source, but I remember reading something about allergies appearing in people later in life, and overexposure in that case was also a factor, IIRC
- PuffinBlue 10y ago
  And possibly something to do with antibiotics too? I had just finished a very heavy course when I was reintroduced to the dog, apparently there is some suspicion that such a scenario could have something to do with it?

Lxr 10y ago

I promise there are plenty of patients with autoimmune disease who had childhoods just like yours. I don’t want to sound hostile but “I am not sick, because I do/did X” is a) not scientifically useful and b) somewhat insulting to patients who suffer from chronic illness. The truth is everyone has risk factors for most diseases and there is still an incredibly large probabilistic element involved - some people are just lucky. This will likely change in the future as true causes are identified of course. The hygiene hypothesis is interesting but it’s far from proven and there are competing theories for many autoimmune diseases involving pathogens. The trendy attitude of “people were so healthy back when society was simple”, however, is blatantly false. People overall, by any reasonable metric, have better health today than they have even had in the past. As we invent vaccines and improve treatment options we simply forget about the burden of diseases that no longer exist.

ellyagg 10y ago
> not scientifically useful This isn't a peer reviewed journal, we're just a community chatting about stuff, so that's not really a germane standard. Anecdotes are a perfectly reasonable input into our personal Bayesian inference filters, since no one has all the answers yet (not even close).
- Dr_tldr 10y ago
  But beyond being a humblebrag, it's also bordering on a just-world view of the universe that's basically superstition. Without reference to a larger dataset, the inference "I"m never sick because I played in the woods and ate weird stuff. If you get sick a lot, it's partially your fault because you didn't do that." could easily be replaced with "I'm never sick because I prayed to the right god every day. If you get sick a lot..."
  - kome 10y ago
    > it's partially your fault because you didn't do that I never implied that. If something, I said that too much pressure by society is making parents work harder, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

laen 10y ago

The "hygiene hypothesis" as you described would then prescribe that by getting "dirty" we'd improve our immune health. An interesting article was posted on HN a few months ago, a good read on "if being too clean makes us sick, why isn't getting dirty the solution." HN Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944486 Article: http://theconversation.com/if-being-too-clean-makes-us-sick-why-isnt-getting-dirty-the-solution-50572 http://theconversation.com/if-being-too-clean-makes-us-sick-...

op00to 10y ago

Do you have children now? I had a similar upbringing and similarly didn't get sick very much. However, once we had a kid, I have been sick way more and more severely. Generally immediately after my child. Do I want to protect my child from getting sick so I can stay productive, or do I want to allow him to exercise his immune system more but reduce my own health and productivity?

underwater 10y ago

I, too, spent my childhood playing outside. And I was never on antibiotics. At 30 I would have told you I was in perfect health. No allergies or asthma or anything remotely like that. Then one day my immune system got out of whack and develop chronic urticaria. (Thankfully modern medicine makes it a minor issue). My childhood didn't retroactively change during that interval. Sometimes you're lucky. And sometimes your luck suddenly runs out.

dvtv75 10y ago
I am the same. Always outside, lived on a farm for a few years, lived in the city. No problems with any allergies, and then, about 15 years ago, I worked in a store with photochemistry, but no ventilation. I was diagnosed with asthma some months later. I was pre-disposed to it, though. Recently, I developed a new allergy to certain types of grass. Now I end up with white dots in my eyes, and a lot of pain.
PantaloonFlames 10y ago
> Sometimes you're lucky. And sometimes your luck suddenly runs out. Sorry to hear about your ...urticaria. But... I don't think it's "luck".

arjie 10y ago

I did all that except the milking by hand and the rare showering (grew up in 36-40 °C place), in addition to being barefoot in the mud everywhere, and all I got for all that is a propensity for catching the flu every year. My brother grew up when we started moving out of this sort of environment (so he had 4 years less of this) and he falls sick much less than I do. My guess is that other factors dominate.

PantaloonFlames 10y ago
> a propensity for catching the flu every year. I don't think that a faraway childhood affects resistance to the flu, right now, significantly. Maybe to some of the maladies mentioned in the article. The fact is the immune system is an engine, just like everything else in the human body. People who exercise more get sick less often. People who exercise more get sick less severely. People who have sex more often have more immunoglobulin A. People who sleep more, get sick less often. If you get the flu more often than you'd like, start exercising more, having more sex, or sleeping better. Ideally all three.
- arjie 10y ago
  Ha ha, I walked right into that. Well played.

lmm 10y ago

I mostly stayed inside and played games, everything was kept clean, I bathed every day, all food was prepared very strictly (mother was a professional). And I never get sick. Anecdotes prove nothing.