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I think if we reduce the common things (like the cold and flu) too much we will have more serious infections sweeping across the planet. The immune system needs
by imeron 6y ago
I think if we reduce the common things (like the cold and flu) too much we will have more serious infections sweeping across the planet. The immune system needs training too.
Just like for kids living in a clean environment (no dogs, dirt, etc.) are more prone to illnesses.
- empthought 6y agoI think you are wrong. Please cite some peer-reviewed sources.
- gardenthoughts 6y agohttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120322142157.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120322142157.h...
- lultimouomo 6y agoThe hygiene hypothesis is about infection in the development age preventing the insurgence of allergic and autoimmune diseases; it does not say in any way that being infected with a virus protects you from an unrelated, worse virus.
- Nasrudith 6y agoTrue but cowpox vs smallpox is a trivial counterexample but it certainly isn't complete protection given the many strands of the common cold and flu. To make a complete hash out of the actual details of biology for the sake of explanation we could say that cowpox shared the same immune signature as smallpox while being less deadly resulting in any smallpox infection attempt being nipped in the bud by the immune system. In that case the question is "Would there be more deadly alias viruses counterparts out there and how does the relative risk profile out?" There is also a matter of niche and the fact we would strongly prefer that mostly harmless ones fill the niche rather than deadly ones but we still sterilize instruments because we rationally don't want to take the chance that our "harmless" microbes might mutate to something more deadly on us, let alone the location dependent danger like ecoli in the digestive tract is fine but not in your bloodstream.
- ebg13 6y agoIt's also not known to be correct. https://theconversation.com/early-exposure-to-infections-doesnt-protect-against-allergies-but-getting-into-nature-might-126603 https://theconversation.com/early-exposure-to-infections-doe... Current researchers advise to avoid the phrase "hygiene hypothesis" entirely, because it's misleading, and the most recent formulations are not that we need more early exposure to bad things but that we need more early exposure to good things.
- ynfnehf 6y agoIt might, however, protect against infection by a related, worse virus. As well as it often being safer to be infected earlier in life than later on (which requires a fair amount of spread along children). There is a related hygiene hypothesis for polio, but luckily we don't have to deal with that anymore. On the whole, eradicating the flu and colds would probably (in my opinion) be a net positive, but you have to be a bit careful with these things.
- lultimouomo 6y ago> It might, however, protect against infection by a related, worse virus. It might, but it's not what the linked article is about.
- matz1 6y agoI'm interested to know why you think its wrong.
- mywittyname 6y agoWell, getting certain infections as a child will cause permanent damage that continues into adulthood. And increasing the likelihood of getting infections also increases the likelihood of getting a particularly bad one. Also, if living in a dirty environment led to better immune systems, we'd observe people from developing nations with poor hygienic standards growing up to have super immune systems. Or people that work in hospitals would never get sick after so many years on the job. But neither of those are the case. Vaccines are a much, much more effective way of building immune systems than doing it "the natural way."
- matz1 6y ago>Well, getting certain infections as a child will cause permanent damage that continues into adulthood. And increasing the likelihood of getting infections also increases the likelihood of getting a particularly bad one. It could certainly happen but does it happen in most case ? >Also, if living in a dirty environment led to better immune systems, we'd observe people from developing nations with poor hygienic standards growing up to have super immune systems But that is what I observe, people who move from outside of that environment, tend to get sick easily compare to people who been living there all the time but over time their immune system adapt and chance to get sick decrease. > Or people that work in hospitals would never get sick after so many years on the job Of course they would still can get sick, but maybe they have less tendency to become sick compared to the general population ? >Vaccines are a much, much more effective way Well, of course, since its purpose built method
- Klinky 6y ago>Well, getting certain infections as a child will cause permanent damage that continues into adulthood. And increasing the likelihood of getting infections also increases the likelihood of getting a particularly bad one. >It could certainly happen but does it happen in most case ? Shingles is from varicella-zoster virus, which causes chicken pox in children, reawakening within your nervous system at a later age. Most children in the US born earlier than 1995 were probably not vaccinated against chickenpox, and have a higher risk of shingles trashing their nervous system at an older age. Assuming "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is flawed. Viruses can lay dormant and slowly kill you, or flare up and cause complications later. A lot of viruses like herpes family, hepatitis, HIV, are bad mojo that typically leave your body permanently weaker after infection, not stronger.
- creddit 6y agoI think you are wrong. Please cite some peer-reviewed sources.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- WalterGR 6y agoThat's not how the burden of proof works.
- creddit 6y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917921/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917921/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40629-018-0056-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40629-018-0056-0 https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/heterologous-immunity https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbio... If all the original author had done was ask for evidence for the claim, it would be completely fair that the burden of proof was entirely on the parent commenter to which they replied based on our social standards. However, they themselves made a specific claim that the parent commenter was wrong and did nothing to back it up. As such a burden of proof was on them as well at that point for the exact same reason.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoThe hygiene hypothesis makes sense to me for allergies, but not for viral/bacterial illnesses. I'm sure that modern humans are exposed to a lot more colds and flus than prehistoric humans were. Colds and flus spread and mutate a lot more easily when we have a population in the billions along with rapid transport.
- AstralStorm 6y agoOr more importantly, huddled together in small enclosed poorly ventilated spaces.
- edoceo 6y agoIndustrial revolution England has joined the chat. 12 person family in crazy small places, no window, mud floor, sharing one bed
- LockAndLol 6y agoYou might be forgetting just what kind of things they were up to at that time. People got in contact with __a lot__ more dirt that we did. There was much more manual labor and much less cushy jobs like we have. The levels of hygiene were nowhere close to the ones we have today. Simple things like bathing weren't by any means standard depending on which time in history and part of the world you're talking about.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoDirt doesn't generally contain human cold & flu viruses & bacteria.
- soperj 6y agoSure it does. Have you never heard of Tetanus? It's literally caused by a bacteria that lives in soil.
- 6y ago
- legulere 6y agoJust recently there was a study in the Netherlands about measles. The result was that if you catch the measles your immune system actually gets attacked and you loose some immunity towards colds etc. that you had before.