4 ms·
Anecdata: my wife’s allergies come and go quite predictably switching between regular and hypoallergenic soaps and laundry detergents. Especially with laundry d
by Joeri 9y ago
Anecdata: my wife’s allergies come and go quite predictably switching between regular and hypoallergenic soaps and laundry detergents. Especially with laundry detergent a single load with the wrong detergent can have her sneezing all day. That doesn’t fit the micro organism exposure theory.
Myself I have an allergy to grass pollen, but the catalyst that really brings it out is car exhaust. Personally I believe that the chemicals in our environment are catalysts for natural sensitivities, turning them into allergies.
- Moru 9y agoSounds just like me. One thing at a time can be ok but combinations really triggers. Sneezing constantly for hours is not fun. Antihistamin helps a lot by removing the pollen side and then I can stand the bad air pollution from cars. Friends washing their clothes in perfume however there is no cure for yet.
- outlace 9y agoThis is still compatible with the hygiene hypothesis. It could be that your wife grew up in a “too clean” environment and hence her immune system became hypersensitive to substances that anybody in a less clean developing country would have no issues with. She has legitimate allergies; the hygiene hypothesis just tries to explain why many people get allergies in the first place.
- learnstats2 9y agoA hypothesis which permits compatibility with any reality it is of limited practical value. If it's ultimately not falsifiable, it's not science.
- outlace 9y agoIt’s a completely testable and falsifiable hypothesis. The original commenter seemed to be dismissing the hypothesis based on an anecdote that he thought falsified the hypothesis and I was pointing out that it does not. Of course any hypothesis that cannot be falsified is not worth entertaining.
- erikpukinskis 9y agoHow would you falsify your hypothesis that the wife's allergies are from a "too clean" environment?
- outlace 9y agoYou can’t, in general, test something that already happened. Moreover, given the immune system is a complex system with some degree of randomness involved, it would probably be impossible to prove that any particular person’s allergies were caused by a too clean environment. But we can certainly study it at a population level and it can be falsified with populations. This is similar to smoking. Smoking is a good explanation for a large amount of the cases of lung disease at the population level and is falsifiable at that level. But it is impossible to say that smoking caused a particular person’s lung cancer. So my original comment of “I wonder if...” is just that. A musing, not a hypothesis. I can’t prove anything for a particular person. But maybe more people will be aware of the hygiene hypothesis and might take it into consideration.
- erikpukinskis 9y agoSo how would you falsify “the population with his wife’s allergy often get it from sources other than a too clean environment”?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- scruple 9y agoI recently (in the last 3 weeks) developed an allergy to heavily fragranced laundry detergent. It's the first persistent allergic reaction I've really ever had. We usually use a very mild unscented detergent but my mother in law was staying with us for a little while and uses Tide and she washed some of my clothes. I generally have sensitive skin and so it was quite a shock. I was bruising all over my body just from light but compulsory scratching. It seems to have passed but it's given me a new found appreciation for using mild chemicals for cleaning, etc...