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Hold on. Compared to the ancestral environment, we have: * Much more sterile environments for fomites. We wash everything including our hands * Much more ster
by graeme 5y ago
Hold on. Compared to the ancestral environment, we have:
* Much more sterile environments for fomites. We wash everything including our hands
* Much more sterile environments for water pathogens
* Much less sterile environments for respiratory viruses. We now have indoor sealed buildings that allow aerosols to build up. Ancestral humans would not have had this
It seems to me that we could plausibly use less sterility in terms of stuff we touch, but more sterility in terms of air.
Water seems fine as it is: you see some pretty bad results in places with water borne pathogens.
On what basis can you argue we evolved to have more respiratory pathogens than present, given the lack of indoor environments in the past?
- ivanhoe 5y agoWhen speaking of "ancient times" we should really define more precisely who do we talk about - there were a huge differences between say citizens of Ancient Rome and some tribesman culture of Amazonia in terms of exposure to the pathogens. We nowadays live in more sterile conditions, but we also live in a way bigger communities than ever, with significantly more population mobility - which makes us on average potentially exposed to a much wider spectrum of different germs in one's lifetime than it was a case ever before. When modern ppl get in contact with isolated tribes, although they're living whole lives in totally non-sterile conditions, it's almost always the modern people who will make them sick, not the other way around.
- graeme 5y agoThat’s true, but the claim was that getting respiratory viruses is good for overall health, because sterility is bad. Sure, our germs make isolated people sick, but are we healthier because of the respiratory viruses, or are we merely germier? OP seems to be arguing the hygiene hypothesis applies to respiratory pathogens.