3 ms·
This would be nice, but I fear we can go too far down this road, particularly with children. Hormesis is important for our health: exposure to periods of starv
by caeril 5y ago
This would be nice, but I fear we can go too far down this road, particularly with children.
Hormesis is important for our health: exposure to periods of starvation to induce autophagy of senescent cells, exposure to allergens and less-than-lethal pathogens (at a young age) to train our immune systems [1,2], etc.
Obviously we want to minimize heavy metal, PFAS exposure, etc - but living in ultrapure environments risks throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
Absolutely in favor of better environmental monitoring, but we need to be very selective about the specific things we don't want.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/22/health/leukemia-clean-childhood-study-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/22/health/leukemia-clean-childho...