9 ms·

So are they increasing or are we just figuring them out more and living longer and keeping more kids alive? I've got a spinal arthritis condition that didn't st

by jemmyw 4y ago

So are they increasing or are we just figuring them out more and living longer and keeping more kids alive? I've got a spinal arthritis condition that didn't start until I was mid 30s and it's not a new condition but the thinking around it has changed substantially. Edit: the consultant I saw said I probably wouldn't get diagnosed 20 years ago when she started. I had trouble convincing my doctor it could be this condition. I'd never have known about it unless I'd mentioned it to my mum who told me my sister (who I don't have contact with) has this quite severely and it took her 10 years to get a diagnosis and access to helpful drugs.

epgui 4y ago
Their incidence/prevalence has mostly been increasing (this is known), but yes we are also diagnosing them better.
explorer83 4y ago
This study was published from a journal that got caught publishing a questionable study on a major health issue a few years ago that they later had to retract. This was despite their reputation of being one of the best and peer-reviewed. So I don't blame you for questioning it. But I'm a parent with children with issues. And everything we study from other very mainstream sources says their issues are on the rise. These are issues that you can't ignore or not recognize.
- johnnymorgan 4y ago
  Love how you framed this, also a parent with a kid with issues. All issues are rising, the whole 'we are just smarter now' is hubris, we really are not.
  - Grimblewald 4y ago
    absolutely, technology changes but people don't. It is precisely because of technology that we aren't changing, that is its entire point.
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      Wait, are you saying humans would be evolving if not for technology? Interesting take...
      - nverno 4y ago
        Always evolving, but technology has surely influenced natural selection - a lot of illnesses/conditions that might have killed people prior to them reproducing are no longer factors in that regard
        gnz11 4y ago
        We're altering the environment rapidly. Environment has a large influence on gene expression. Not a biologist but that is more likely the reason.
      - Grimblewald 4y ago
        pretty much - we don't adapt our form to our environment, rather when a problem arises we develop a technology that removes the discomfort we feel, which would otherwise act as an adaptation driving pressure. We develop our tech such that any segment can be readily learned as an isolated component, and as such our memory isn't under pressure to improve. We outsource memory to digital storage, and so there is even an allowance for memory to shrink. Overall, all our tech looks at helping us not have to change, grow, or adapt. We want to live a life of comfort but comfort means no pressure and no pressure means no adaptation reinforcement of advantageous mutations, since what is most advantageous is being average in every way.
        pohl 4y ago
        The notion that “we don't adapt”, though, is really a euphemism for “people, who otherwise might not, are surviving to reproduce and are therefore not selected out”. But the truth is that death is still inevitable and people are still being selected out, and we are still, therefore adapting. The only thing that has changed is what environment we are being selected for: Earth in the Anthropocene.
  - refurb 4y ago
    The idea that the rates of disease increase when screening increases is widely known. Any epidemiologist who tries and analyze data and model disease trends accounts for a number of factors that can impact prevalence - screening rate, screening accuracy, etc. The number of people with a disease can stay static, but the number of diagnoses can increase dramatically with widespread screening and accurate tests.
    - 2devnull 4y ago
      Moreover it’s a vicious (virtuous) cycle. To get better funding to research a specific disease experts will play up how important their research is by playing up the severity, the “increasingness” of the thing. With funding secure you can now roll out more research studies that tell practitioners all about the disease and how it’s “increasingly important”. Now doctors will test more patients for the disease, maybe over diagnose it too. And so and so forth. Humans are flawed. Humans make research. We should be more skeptical about supposedly “established” science.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  I've been doing some searches since I asked the question and I wouldn't say there's a satisfactory answer. A mainstream source just saying that autoimmune disorders are on the rise isn't good enough, especially as most articles I've read couch that with "and we now recognise more of these disorders" or something similar. There seems more evidence that allergies are on the rise. Maybe. I note that I found a lot of articles saying things like "autoimmune conditions are a Western disease" and blaming modern lifestyle. But arthritis is as old as the hills. I'm not at all denying that they are actually on the rise, but nothing really seems to tackle this in a way that answers all the questions - is it on the rise or do we just detect and categorise it now. Does it occur because people live longer? In the past did people have these conditions and not know, have to live with it or die? I know that for my back condition people in the past got it and their back bones fused together over time, nowadays people tend to get treated with anti-inflammatories and now biologicals plus exercise regimes to prevent it. As there is a wide range of intensity within each autoimmune disorder the majority of people who had a condition in the past might be unreported. So if anyone can point to articles or papers that address all those things I'd be very interested.
  - hirako2000 4y ago
    That's a lot of tough questions. I don't think answers are lacking, but you will find anything and its exact opposite. Who funds this and that research? You will find that pharnaceuticals in their desire to show growing market opportunities to their backers, and grow, will make very well sure to fund enough groups so that some of them come up with the conclusion: these issues are on the rise and don't appear to relate to environnemental exposures, even adding that treatments are or will be made available to diagnosed patients. You will then find another paper, likely funded by an NGO working on reducing the use of pesticides, or other surely health impacting industrial habits, that there is undeniable correlation between the intensive use of chemicals in agro and the rise of auto-immune disease, with a lag of X years, whatever make the numbers look legit. I'm not qualifying scientific research in general as biased towards the backers' incentives, but there is a lot of noise in statistical discoveries, scientists mostly interested in publishing something since that's their financial prerogatives to stay in the game. With all that being said, I will give my "opinion" which may answer part of your questions, but my conclusion wasn't reached by the standard of scientific methods: - we are ingesting and getting exposed to a wider range and higher quantities of toxic compounds, often so synthetic. - the immune system is a complex machine, that tilts and can overreact when on alerts, tends to have good memories, and can trigger or retrigger oversensitiveness, all for our survival's sake, it isn't de facto a disease to have the immune system take the wrong fights. - that immune system, shown to not always discriminate properly, probably having evolved to be rather safe than sorry. - we don't fully understand the immune system, maybe we barely do. Is it possible that we diagnose as a disease what might simply be the expected consequences of long term exposures to undersirable chemicals? That pharma got to sell something so they don't have any problem marketing chemical therapies and strongly promoting that rather than suggesting addressing the causes might be a better option? It wouldn't be the first time in history that physicians insist with the known treatments for symptoms they ignored the causes. Again take this with a pinch of salt, i am not advising against drug treatments altogether but took the opportunity to remind this thread that health care is also a business. From a non medical scientist who happen to have allergies and skimmed through a few hundred papers on the subject.
- _Microft 4y ago
  Which journal do you mean? "The Lancet"?
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    Apparently we discount everything The Lancet says now based on one retraction.
    - _Microft 4y ago
      Not just that but not retracting fraudulent research is much worse than that?
      - carlmr 4y ago
        Exactly. It's like a friend of mine who said he doesn't want to buy some car brand because they have so many recalls. I want to buy that car brand because it has so many recalls. Every system has bugs, and recalls means you're fixing them. Which to me is much better than hiding them.
- EGreg 4y ago
  Yes we can’t ignore these issues. I always challenge people to attempt all kinds of mitigations upstream, before medicating downstream. This is also true for diabetes and autoimmune diseases — for example, stop buying food from factory farms, or fruits with tons of genetically engineered sugar or foods with tons of high-fructose corn syrup or aspartame, and tell our government to tax negative externalities, rather than “ag-gag” laws that criminalize exposing it. Your media will rarely talk about the role of actual sugar intake in diabetes, preferring to focus on “inherited” and “intrinsic” factors, and same with many other medical issue the pharma industry will medicate downstream. The government specifically works with industry to allow corporations to get away with saving a buck at the expense of the wider public, while the wider public is given a medications and bandaids downstream that decades later turn out to be scams: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Like when the government allows Coca Cola and Snapple bottling companies to switch to metric tons of non-biodegradeable plastic, while individuals are told they can’t have a plastic straw or bag, and can save the world by recycling plastic (a scam by the plastic industry to distract from the upstream problem, nearly all of the “recycling” consisted of shipping to China). Or how factory farms are now causing more negative externalities, which we are now finding out last month: https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/25/use-of-antibiotics-in-farming-endangering-human-immune-system https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/25/use-of-antib... https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/01/why-are-eggs-so-expensive-because-an-avian-flu-killed-43-million-hens-last-year https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/01/why-ar... I invite you to consider the same dynamic with autoimmune diseases and others. It’s the same question of whether kids always had this level of gender dysphoria and ADHD and autism, or did something happen in the environment, or did the industry start to overdiagnose them? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but activists on either side insist on their explanation being the dominant one, or perhaps the only one. Similarly to how other activists might insist on systemic sexism or racism to explain a gender pay gap, or systemic antisemitism to explain criticism of Israel, etc. (Disclaimer: I’m a Jewish straight cis male.) This is an impulse by people with a specific agenda / issue to make sure their agenda “wins”. In every case, there are real problems that need to be solved upstream, but the focus by well-meaning activists is only on downstream solutions (eg prescribing amphetamines to ADHD-diagnosed kids) rather than upstream solutions (eg shortrr school days and allowing kids to climb trees like in Finland, where ADHD has far less diagnosed). They will spend decades advocating the same thing and expect a different result — it’s not collective insanity, it is actually learned helplessness. It is common to think this way when one’s “tribe” is involved. To illustrate it, I will touch on an issue with dynamics that have affected many people on HN. I hope it’s alright to mention it, because that is the only way you’ll see that the “downstream focus” even concerns many sacred cows. So — to hit home, this even happened on HN with depression. I have seen it for years, where any attempts to attribute some diagnosed depression to upstream causes like diet and exercise and environental factors are met with “you just don’t understand, clinical depression is completely different, and you should be quiet”. In each of these issues, the science shows that the theory that promotes medical interventions downstream is often wrong, eg in 2022 we found this out when it comes to the theory of chemical imbalance / low serotonin explaining depression: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/20/scientists-question-widespread-use-of-antidepressants-after-survey-on-serotonin https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/20/scientists-q... On the other hand there is a ton of studies on everyone from young girls to middle aged people getting far more sad and depressed: Teen girls: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/health/teen-girls-sadness-suicide-violence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/health/teen-girls-sadness... 20% of all middle-aged women is on antidepressants (surely it can’t all be explained by a chemical imbalance, right?) https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/cdc-states-1-in-5-women-between-ages-40-59-on-antidepressants-buffalo-mental-health-expert-shares-reasons-why https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/cdc-states-1-in-5-women... Opioid epidemic in men, once again much of it is due to capitalism, both from an employment and a pharma industry side: https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html But it’s easy for society to just prescribe medications to people rather than fixing systemic issues, eg implementing a UBI or 20 hour workweek overtime protections so people can spend more time with their family. In capitalism we’d rather allow companies to social problems with surveillance capitalism, social networks and AI to optimize clicks, because that’s what the market demands. On the other hand there are tons of studies and books on how the market and new technology has led to the breakdown of American social and family life. Starting with “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam back in the early aughts. People in big cities don’t even know their own neighbors. They live alone with their cats, order in netflix and uber eats, they stick their kids in public schools and parents in nursing homes, but hey, the economy is good right? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/opinion/microplastics-health-environment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/opinion/microplastics-hea... Anyway to end with autoimmune diseases… notice how much more effort it would take for our society to stop producing plastics in clothes, that break down into microplastics on every wash, aren’t caught in drains and now find themselves everywhere, humans accumulate more and more microplastics. Rather than confront these environmental issues head-on (as we did once with CFCs and Toronto Protocol, the one big win for solving collective action problems) we allow the microplastics to accumulate in all biological beings, including us, throw up our hands and wonder aloud what could be causing autoimmune diseases? Meanwhile it is more convenient to open a new plastic spoon from a plastic package shipped from china, than wash a metal one. Instead of refilling bottles like our ancestors, we buy new ones every day and chuck them in the “recycling” LOL. Oh, and polyester is just so stretchy and convenient, as is teflon non-stick coating on our pans, why demand our government tell the industry to phase out nonbiodegradeable stuff and research biodegradeable alternstives? Nah that’s too hard to do as a society. So the problems get worse every year and “activists” arise who attribute it to a systemic issue like sexism or racism — they think they’re a great ally but rather than fighting each other we should band together to demand our govenrnment aggressively tax negative externalities upstream with Pigouvian taxes. Fiscal policy btw would be a great way to remove stimulus and UBI money from the economy. Certainly much nore targeted and better than crude monetary level the Fed has, raising interest rates on everyone. But our politicians are scared to raise taxes on industries, or go up against Big Ag or Big Pharma. So we as a society allow Day Zero to occur in cities, antibiotic resistant bacteria to grow, etc. all because of regulatory capture and cowardice. It will continue unless people recognize that the real problems are upstream, stop fighting each other and clearly spell out how we can organize to demand our government raise taxes on industries externalizing costs to others. If there was ever a proper role for government, it is that! PS: with AI, experts say 10% chance that humanity is wiped out… yet we can’t stop the competition and progress, and certainly when people are affected we’ll have industries to help them out downstream. Just another example, perhaps may be the biggest and fastest one soon.
- 6nf 4y ago
  Which study was that?
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  I think phrases like “a journal that got caught publishing a questionable study” imply a level of malice that isn’t appropriate. Journals publish studies all the time with some degree of peer review and a fraction of them are going to have problems, plus there is always the possibility of deliberate fraud that peer-review systems are explicitly not designed to catch. You shouldn’t believe every published study is 100% accurate just because it was published. But you also shouldn’t use phrases like “got caught” unless your goal is to imply deliberate malfeasance.
  - totalZero 4y ago
    Journals operate in an information brokerage business and they are compensated to ensure reasonable review of what they publish. What you wrote would be applicable to something like reddit but you can't accept funds for a job that you don't carry out.
    - matthewdgreen 4y ago
      The problem here is that journals are relying on an open source peer review process for which they pay nothing, and then trying to cash in on the fruits of that. Blaming the reviewers is like blaming the medieval serfs for the fact that their landlords sold you rotten grain.
      - watwut 3y ago
        Even if they were paid, it would not check for this. Peer review checks formalities, obvious methodological problems, citations, that sort of stuff. It is not an independent study meant to validate data themselves.
    - watwut 3y ago
      What you wrote is false and suggests you do not know how science works. Peer review does not mean fraudulent studies can't go through, it is not even meant for that. Reasonable review does not excludes these.
Panzer04 4y ago
I recall somewhere that due to us getting better at protecting people from pathogens, immune systems get “less practice” at identifying friend from foe, increasing the likelihood of contracting an autoimmune disorder down the line. I have no idea how accurate that is, but it’s what over heard.
- fnord77 4y ago
  this is the "hygiene hypothesis" and there is a correlation but nobody has shown causation. it was popular 10 years ago but other models have become more prominent
  - vjk800 4y ago
    What other models?
    - fnord77 3y ago
      cold chain hypothesis!
- miriam_catira 4y ago
  Personal anecdote: I have Graves disease, and it didn't flare up until a couple years after I finished immune therapy for a variety of severe allergies. The allergies are much better! But my immune system got bored, or something. Correlation vs causation though... causation makes a lot of sense when living it, but it's not proof. I'm also quite certain my great-grandmother had this same thing, but no would have been able to diagnose her as anything but excessively thin back then. (It severely increases your metabolism and can cause osteoporosis.)
- odyssey7 4y ago
  It could be true for some of them, but it's also possible that "autoimmune" is not a very good description of what's happening for some others. Disorders lacking an obvious cause seem to get lumped into the autoimmune category whenever the symptoms are related to inflammation. Before modern medicine, these disorders might have been masked by or passed as a milder form of tuberculosis or something else. It's still possible that there are pathogens involved that haven't been identified.
Amezarak 4y ago
Life expectancy after age 5 has not budged much over the centuries, though you’ll find most graphs begin at a trough circa 1900. Prior to that it was about the same as it is now in many countries. So “we’re living longer” is not the answer, it probably has much more to do with the massive amounts of new chemicals and pollutants we’ve exposed ourselves to. No barriers to transport along with unrestrained trade and frequent migration also mean were exposed to way more pathogens than we evolved to encounter, so some of them could also be blowback from legitimate immune responses.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/its-not-just-about-child-mortality-life-expectancy-improved-at-all-ages https://ourworldindata.org/its-not-just-about-child-mortalit... has life expectancies for age ranges from 1841 and shows a huge difference for a 5 year old. If conditions get worse with age then the average going from 55 to 82 (from age 5) could hide a lot of data about these disorders.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19440443/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19440443/ > Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. You see this basically throughout history except in very bad times like famine or major plagues, or were there is persistent dietary issues as we introduced in the late 19thc, or early on in the switch to farming. Rural areas also tend to do better than urban.
    - jemmyw 4y ago
      Thanks for the link that is informative.
    - taeric 4y ago
      This feels wrong, though. Measles alone meant you likely lost kids in that age range. Antiseptics, as well, were huge in saving people from from otherwise deadly nicks.
hattar 4y ago
Spondylitis? I’m curious mostly because I received a similar story and diagnosis, but over the last 5-10 years have had multiple doctors second guess what may be affecting me.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  Yes. Once my mum told me to get a test for the HLA-B27 gene, which was positive, my doctor referred me, while still being doubtful. Consultant didn't second guess at all, she looked over my x-ray and family history and said it was pretty clear. It might seem like bad news but it's such a massive relief knowing and having a path forward treatment wise as I get older.
  - dfinninger 4y ago
    I’ve had as AS diagnosis for over a decade now and it was definitely a relief. Just having a name for why I wasn’t “normal”. Why everyone around was able to just do so much more than I could. That this was a real thing, I’m not somehow faking it, and there’s someone who can help. I wish you luck and hope you find some physical relief as well!
tehjoker 4y ago
They are increasing due to COVID. A recent study found a 40% increase in risk after infection. https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-linked-to-40-increase-in-autoimmune-disease-risk-in-huge-study https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-linked-to-40-increase-i...
- 6nf 4y ago
  Do we see the same thing in unvaccinated populations? Like the Amish or PNG or African countries that has super low uptake?
  - tehjoker 4y ago
    Not sure, but the difference between a measured amount of bound spike protein and an uncontrolled amount of fully functional spike + other evil proteins like those derived from orf8 and orf6 means I fully expect the virus to be the main problem here.
    - Slava_Propanei 4y ago
      [dead]
    - 6nf 4y ago
      I don’t know if you know this but the vaccine is not a measured amount of bound spike protein at all. It’s mRNA that gets transcribed over and over - each mRNA molecule creates many spikes. Exactly how many depends on many factors in your body. When I’m at a PC again I will link you to some studies showing cases where it exceeds the amount you’d expect in a natural infection and there’s documented cases where it continues weeks after injection unlike the virus which doesn’t last that long in healthy young people.
      - tehjoker 4y ago
        That's fair, but it's a fixed amount of RNA and RNA degrades. The virus can continually create new RNA. COVID has been shown to persist in a fraction of patients, so it will continue for months or years. I don't see how these situations are comparable. Again, the vaccine spike is edited to be bound in the pre-fusion conformation whereas the natural spike is flexible and can bind to ACE2 and expose additional internal inflammatory sites. https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38 https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behi... "Young, healthy people" makes enormous assumptions about a tiny slice of the population. After one or more COVID infections, they may acquire the dreaded "co-morbidities" that a huge fraction if not a majority or supermajority of the population have. Despite how we like to think we have personal control over our circumstances, in this situation, we do not. It is a collective effort and we are failing to control transmission. Vaccines are part of this, as are masking with N95 respirators, testing, air cleaning, paid sick leave, scientific isolation and quarantine periods, etc. I am hopeful that with targeted or universal air cleaning combined with partial population immunity (maintained via periodic vaccine updates) and paid leave, we can push the reproduction number below one. This is a very serious crisis that is worsening in some ways, but we are acting like the physical environment has no bearing on our lives if we think positively.
zackees 4y ago
[dead]
sandworm101 4y ago
I have osgood schlatter syndrome, basically a bone growth on the knee. Had it for decades but not diagnosed until 30s during physical for new job. Zero impacts. No pain. No limitations. No issues whatsoever. But I do have a named syndrome that, in years past, would never have been noticed.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Miner49er 4y ago
I know one study found celiac is increasing, not just being diagnosed more (although it is also being diagnosed more). I'm not sure of other autoimmune diseases. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701082911.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701082911.h...
- ksaun 4y ago
  Another example of an autoimmune disease that has been becoming more common (not just more frequently diagnosed) is type 1 diabetes (T1D). (From March, 2020): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7146037/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7146037/ (Increased diagnostic capability seems unlikely to be a factor in T1D's prevalence -- when it is triggered, untreated T1D leads to obvious and serious symptoms (eventually death through ketoacidosis) over the course of months. It's not something you can just ignore and power through; treatment is required to survive.)
zug_zug 4y ago
I looked into this a while back, and I believe there are a number of different autoimmune conditions that are definitely going up with no cause known (corroborated by multiple studies). One is linked I also am a bit troubled by how quick people are to dismiss such studies. I think people are operating off of a prior of "big shifts in health don't just happen," which in my opinion is a demonstrably false prior. I think the default prior should be "We're in completely new health waters, testing in production, anything is possible and problems are known and not explained." In particular nobody can explain why eyesight is getting drastically worse. Obesity in the developed world is a big unknown (I think even lab rats weigh more). I believe there's consistent evidence of allergies increasing. And the balance of evidence is that sperm counts are going down, but for whatever reason I think people assume that's a conspiracy theory or just are afraid to believe it. [1] https://www.academia.edu/download/40579191/ijcd-3-4-8.pdf https://www.academia.edu/download/40579191/ijcd-3-4-8.pdf
- tremon 4y ago
  What level of evidence do you require for those explanations? Because all three observations you mention have credible theories, some even have partial proofs. nobody can explain why eyesight is getting drastically worse The prevailing theory has to do with lack of exercise of the eyeball, i.e. children spend too much time indoors locked at a single viewing depth; children who spend more time in the outdoors tend to have better eyesight. In China they're running broad studies which seem to indicate that children's eyesight stops deteriorating when exposed to more bright daylight: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05156190 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05156190 Obesity in the developed world is a big unknown Sugary/unbalanced foods and sedentary lifestyles? The proofs we have go as far to document the entire systemic changes that ultimately lead to insulin resistance: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6471380/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6471380/ sperm counts are going down There's suspected links to endocrine-disruptive pesticides, but FAFAIK no proven mechanisms.
  - krackers 4y ago
    Also wearing glasses when they're not needed. Your eyes will adapt to the accommodative stress presented. If you look at a screen all day, you'll end up with a power of roughly -2 assuming you don't wear any glasses looking at your screen, since your eyes have adapted to treat that 2 feet as optical infinity so it can remain in focus without any accommodation needed. If you then go ahead and wear prescribed glasses for close-work where they are not needed, you again restart the process. Interestingly it has been found that only periphery matters for this process, that's how those fancy glasses like Hoya Miyosmart work, by intentionally defocusing the periphery.
zaptheimpaler 4y ago
The hygiene hypothesis is pretty well proven now as far as I know. Its the idea that early childhood exposure to various germs is important to tune the immune system correctly. It atleast partially explains the rise of autoimmunity. From the wiki: The rise of autoimmune diseases and acute lymphoblastic leukemia in young people in the developed world was linked to the hygiene hypothesis.
- zpeti 4y ago
  I wonder how our global lifestyle affects this too. You might have had a really dirty childhood in the UK and adapted to all the dirt and toxins there, but then you take a job in Nevada or something and you don’t have childhood immunity to anything there. I’d love a study done on autoimmune disease prominence in expats vs local populations.
  - zaptheimpaler 4y ago
    Heres one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31351784/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31351784/
giantg2 4y ago
I think this is a true increase, but don't have anything to back this up. One major reason it might be increasing is our increasingly sterile world. Less exposure to nature, animals, etc , especially as children, might be preventing proper immune function. I also wonder about chemical exposures - food additives, vaccine adjuvants, manufacturing chemicals, etc. Although I think many of those suppress immune function rather than increase it. It is interesting that we don't know how some of these work, but use them anyways. For example, we don't know the mechanisms for vaccine adjuvant work. There's a theory about molecular size, and we know they increase immune response. There's a lot we don't know about the immune system in general.

by jemmyw 4y ago

epgui 4y ago

Their incidence/prevalence has mostly been increasing (this is known), but yes we are also diagnosing them better.

explorer83 4y ago

This study was published from a journal that got caught publishing a questionable study on a major health issue a few years ago that they later had to retract. This was despite their reputation of being one of the best and peer-reviewed. So I don't blame you for questioning it. But I'm a parent with children with issues. And everything we study from other very mainstream sources says their issues are on the rise. These are issues that you can't ignore or not recognize.

johnnymorgan 4y ago
Love how you framed this, also a parent with a kid with issues. All issues are rising, the whole 'we are just smarter now' is hubris, we really are not.
- Grimblewald 4y ago
  absolutely, technology changes but people don't. It is precisely because of technology that we aren't changing, that is its entire point.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    Wait, are you saying humans would be evolving if not for technology? Interesting take...
    - nverno 4y ago
      Always evolving, but technology has surely influenced natural selection - a lot of illnesses/conditions that might have killed people prior to them reproducing are no longer factors in that regard
      - gnz11 4y ago
        We're altering the environment rapidly. Environment has a large influence on gene expression. Not a biologist but that is more likely the reason.
    - Grimblewald 4y ago
      pretty much - we don't adapt our form to our environment, rather when a problem arises we develop a technology that removes the discomfort we feel, which would otherwise act as an adaptation driving pressure. We develop our tech such that any segment can be readily learned as an isolated component, and as such our memory isn't under pressure to improve. We outsource memory to digital storage, and so there is even an allowance for memory to shrink. Overall, all our tech looks at helping us not have to change, grow, or adapt. We want to live a life of comfort but comfort means no pressure and no pressure means no adaptation reinforcement of advantageous mutations, since what is most advantageous is being average in every way.
      - pohl 4y ago
        The notion that “we don't adapt”, though, is really a euphemism for “people, who otherwise might not, are surviving to reproduce and are therefore not selected out”. But the truth is that death is still inevitable and people are still being selected out, and we are still, therefore adapting. The only thing that has changed is what environment we are being selected for: Earth in the Anthropocene.
- refurb 4y ago
  The idea that the rates of disease increase when screening increases is widely known. Any epidemiologist who tries and analyze data and model disease trends accounts for a number of factors that can impact prevalence - screening rate, screening accuracy, etc. The number of people with a disease can stay static, but the number of diagnoses can increase dramatically with widespread screening and accurate tests.
  - 2devnull 4y ago
    Moreover it’s a vicious (virtuous) cycle. To get better funding to research a specific disease experts will play up how important their research is by playing up the severity, the “increasingness” of the thing. With funding secure you can now roll out more research studies that tell practitioners all about the disease and how it’s “increasingly important”. Now doctors will test more patients for the disease, maybe over diagnose it too. And so and so forth. Humans are flawed. Humans make research. We should be more skeptical about supposedly “established” science.
jemmyw 4y ago
I've been doing some searches since I asked the question and I wouldn't say there's a satisfactory answer. A mainstream source just saying that autoimmune disorders are on the rise isn't good enough, especially as most articles I've read couch that with "and we now recognise more of these disorders" or something similar. There seems more evidence that allergies are on the rise. Maybe. I note that I found a lot of articles saying things like "autoimmune conditions are a Western disease" and blaming modern lifestyle. But arthritis is as old as the hills. I'm not at all denying that they are actually on the rise, but nothing really seems to tackle this in a way that answers all the questions - is it on the rise or do we just detect and categorise it now. Does it occur because people live longer? In the past did people have these conditions and not know, have to live with it or die? I know that for my back condition people in the past got it and their back bones fused together over time, nowadays people tend to get treated with anti-inflammatories and now biologicals plus exercise regimes to prevent it. As there is a wide range of intensity within each autoimmune disorder the majority of people who had a condition in the past might be unreported. So if anyone can point to articles or papers that address all those things I'd be very interested.
- hirako2000 4y ago
  That's a lot of tough questions. I don't think answers are lacking, but you will find anything and its exact opposite. Who funds this and that research? You will find that pharnaceuticals in their desire to show growing market opportunities to their backers, and grow, will make very well sure to fund enough groups so that some of them come up with the conclusion: these issues are on the rise and don't appear to relate to environnemental exposures, even adding that treatments are or will be made available to diagnosed patients. You will then find another paper, likely funded by an NGO working on reducing the use of pesticides, or other surely health impacting industrial habits, that there is undeniable correlation between the intensive use of chemicals in agro and the rise of auto-immune disease, with a lag of X years, whatever make the numbers look legit. I'm not qualifying scientific research in general as biased towards the backers' incentives, but there is a lot of noise in statistical discoveries, scientists mostly interested in publishing something since that's their financial prerogatives to stay in the game. With all that being said, I will give my "opinion" which may answer part of your questions, but my conclusion wasn't reached by the standard of scientific methods: - we are ingesting and getting exposed to a wider range and higher quantities of toxic compounds, often so synthetic. - the immune system is a complex machine, that tilts and can overreact when on alerts, tends to have good memories, and can trigger or retrigger oversensitiveness, all for our survival's sake, it isn't de facto a disease to have the immune system take the wrong fights. - that immune system, shown to not always discriminate properly, probably having evolved to be rather safe than sorry. - we don't fully understand the immune system, maybe we barely do. Is it possible that we diagnose as a disease what might simply be the expected consequences of long term exposures to undersirable chemicals? That pharma got to sell something so they don't have any problem marketing chemical therapies and strongly promoting that rather than suggesting addressing the causes might be a better option? It wouldn't be the first time in history that physicians insist with the known treatments for symptoms they ignored the causes. Again take this with a pinch of salt, i am not advising against drug treatments altogether but took the opportunity to remind this thread that health care is also a business. From a non medical scientist who happen to have allergies and skimmed through a few hundred papers on the subject.
_Microft 4y ago
Which journal do you mean? "The Lancet"?
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  Apparently we discount everything The Lancet says now based on one retraction.
  - _Microft 4y ago
    Not just that but not retracting fraudulent research is much worse than that?
    - carlmr 4y ago
      Exactly. It's like a friend of mine who said he doesn't want to buy some car brand because they have so many recalls. I want to buy that car brand because it has so many recalls. Every system has bugs, and recalls means you're fixing them. Which to me is much better than hiding them.
EGreg 4y ago
Yes we can’t ignore these issues. I always challenge people to attempt all kinds of mitigations upstream, before medicating downstream. This is also true for diabetes and autoimmune diseases — for example, stop buying food from factory farms, or fruits with tons of genetically engineered sugar or foods with tons of high-fructose corn syrup or aspartame, and tell our government to tax negative externalities, rather than “ag-gag” laws that criminalize exposing it. Your media will rarely talk about the role of actual sugar intake in diabetes, preferring to focus on “inherited” and “intrinsic” factors, and same with many other medical issue the pharma industry will medicate downstream. The government specifically works with industry to allow corporations to get away with saving a buck at the expense of the wider public, while the wider public is given a medications and bandaids downstream that decades later turn out to be scams: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Like when the government allows Coca Cola and Snapple bottling companies to switch to metric tons of non-biodegradeable plastic, while individuals are told they can’t have a plastic straw or bag, and can save the world by recycling plastic (a scam by the plastic industry to distract from the upstream problem, nearly all of the “recycling” consisted of shipping to China). Or how factory farms are now causing more negative externalities, which we are now finding out last month: https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/25/use-of-antibiotics-in-farming-endangering-human-immune-system https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/25/use-of-antib... https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/01/why-are-eggs-so-expensive-because-an-avian-flu-killed-43-million-hens-last-year https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/01/why-ar... I invite you to consider the same dynamic with autoimmune diseases and others. It’s the same question of whether kids always had this level of gender dysphoria and ADHD and autism, or did something happen in the environment, or did the industry start to overdiagnose them? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but activists on either side insist on their explanation being the dominant one, or perhaps the only one. Similarly to how other activists might insist on systemic sexism or racism to explain a gender pay gap, or systemic antisemitism to explain criticism of Israel, etc. (Disclaimer: I’m a Jewish straight cis male.) This is an impulse by people with a specific agenda / issue to make sure their agenda “wins”. In every case, there are real problems that need to be solved upstream, but the focus by well-meaning activists is only on downstream solutions (eg prescribing amphetamines to ADHD-diagnosed kids) rather than upstream solutions (eg shortrr school days and allowing kids to climb trees like in Finland, where ADHD has far less diagnosed). They will spend decades advocating the same thing and expect a different result — it’s not collective insanity, it is actually learned helplessness. It is common to think this way when one’s “tribe” is involved. To illustrate it, I will touch on an issue with dynamics that have affected many people on HN. I hope it’s alright to mention it, because that is the only way you’ll see that the “downstream focus” even concerns many sacred cows. So — to hit home, this even happened on HN with depression. I have seen it for years, where any attempts to attribute some diagnosed depression to upstream causes like diet and exercise and environental factors are met with “you just don’t understand, clinical depression is completely different, and you should be quiet”. In each of these issues, the science shows that the theory that promotes medical interventions downstream is often wrong, eg in 2022 we found this out when it comes to the theory of chemical imbalance / low serotonin explaining depression: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/20/scientists-question-widespread-use-of-antidepressants-after-survey-on-serotonin https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/20/scientists-q... On the other hand there is a ton of studies on everyone from young girls to middle aged people getting far more sad and depressed: Teen girls: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/health/teen-girls-sadness-suicide-violence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/health/teen-girls-sadness... 20% of all middle-aged women is on antidepressants (surely it can’t all be explained by a chemical imbalance, right?) https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/cdc-states-1-in-5-women-between-ages-40-59-on-antidepressants-buffalo-mental-health-expert-shares-reasons-why https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/cdc-states-1-in-5-women... Opioid epidemic in men, once again much of it is due to capitalism, both from an employment and a pharma industry side: https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html But it’s easy for society to just prescribe medications to people rather than fixing systemic issues, eg implementing a UBI or 20 hour workweek overtime protections so people can spend more time with their family. In capitalism we’d rather allow companies to social problems with surveillance capitalism, social networks and AI to optimize clicks, because that’s what the market demands. On the other hand there are tons of studies and books on how the market and new technology has led to the breakdown of American social and family life. Starting with “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam back in the early aughts. People in big cities don’t even know their own neighbors. They live alone with their cats, order in netflix and uber eats, they stick their kids in public schools and parents in nursing homes, but hey, the economy is good right? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/opinion/microplastics-health-environment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/opinion/microplastics-hea... Anyway to end with autoimmune diseases… notice how much more effort it would take for our society to stop producing plastics in clothes, that break down into microplastics on every wash, aren’t caught in drains and now find themselves everywhere, humans accumulate more and more microplastics. Rather than confront these environmental issues head-on (as we did once with CFCs and Toronto Protocol, the one big win for solving collective action problems) we allow the microplastics to accumulate in all biological beings, including us, throw up our hands and wonder aloud what could be causing autoimmune diseases? Meanwhile it is more convenient to open a new plastic spoon from a plastic package shipped from china, than wash a metal one. Instead of refilling bottles like our ancestors, we buy new ones every day and chuck them in the “recycling” LOL. Oh, and polyester is just so stretchy and convenient, as is teflon non-stick coating on our pans, why demand our government tell the industry to phase out nonbiodegradeable stuff and research biodegradeable alternstives? Nah that’s too hard to do as a society. So the problems get worse every year and “activists” arise who attribute it to a systemic issue like sexism or racism — they think they’re a great ally but rather than fighting each other we should band together to demand our govenrnment aggressively tax negative externalities upstream with Pigouvian taxes. Fiscal policy btw would be a great way to remove stimulus and UBI money from the economy. Certainly much nore targeted and better than crude monetary level the Fed has, raising interest rates on everyone. But our politicians are scared to raise taxes on industries, or go up against Big Ag or Big Pharma. So we as a society allow Day Zero to occur in cities, antibiotic resistant bacteria to grow, etc. all because of regulatory capture and cowardice. It will continue unless people recognize that the real problems are upstream, stop fighting each other and clearly spell out how we can organize to demand our government raise taxes on industries externalizing costs to others. If there was ever a proper role for government, it is that! PS: with AI, experts say 10% chance that humanity is wiped out… yet we can’t stop the competition and progress, and certainly when people are affected we’ll have industries to help them out downstream. Just another example, perhaps may be the biggest and fastest one soon.
6nf 4y ago
Which study was that?
matthewdgreen 4y ago
I think phrases like “a journal that got caught publishing a questionable study” imply a level of malice that isn’t appropriate. Journals publish studies all the time with some degree of peer review and a fraction of them are going to have problems, plus there is always the possibility of deliberate fraud that peer-review systems are explicitly not designed to catch. You shouldn’t believe every published study is 100% accurate just because it was published. But you also shouldn’t use phrases like “got caught” unless your goal is to imply deliberate malfeasance.
- totalZero 4y ago
  Journals operate in an information brokerage business and they are compensated to ensure reasonable review of what they publish. What you wrote would be applicable to something like reddit but you can't accept funds for a job that you don't carry out.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    The problem here is that journals are relying on an open source peer review process for which they pay nothing, and then trying to cash in on the fruits of that. Blaming the reviewers is like blaming the medieval serfs for the fact that their landlords sold you rotten grain.
    - watwut 3y ago
      Even if they were paid, it would not check for this. Peer review checks formalities, obvious methodological problems, citations, that sort of stuff. It is not an independent study meant to validate data themselves.
  - watwut 3y ago
    What you wrote is false and suggests you do not know how science works. Peer review does not mean fraudulent studies can't go through, it is not even meant for that. Reasonable review does not excludes these.

Panzer04 4y ago

I recall somewhere that due to us getting better at protecting people from pathogens, immune systems get “less practice” at identifying friend from foe, increasing the likelihood of contracting an autoimmune disorder down the line. I have no idea how accurate that is, but it’s what over heard.

fnord77 4y ago
this is the "hygiene hypothesis" and there is a correlation but nobody has shown causation. it was popular 10 years ago but other models have become more prominent
- vjk800 4y ago
  What other models?
  - fnord77 3y ago
    cold chain hypothesis!
miriam_catira 4y ago
Personal anecdote: I have Graves disease, and it didn't flare up until a couple years after I finished immune therapy for a variety of severe allergies. The allergies are much better! But my immune system got bored, or something. Correlation vs causation though... causation makes a lot of sense when living it, but it's not proof. I'm also quite certain my great-grandmother had this same thing, but no would have been able to diagnose her as anything but excessively thin back then. (It severely increases your metabolism and can cause osteoporosis.)
odyssey7 4y ago
It could be true for some of them, but it's also possible that "autoimmune" is not a very good description of what's happening for some others. Disorders lacking an obvious cause seem to get lumped into the autoimmune category whenever the symptoms are related to inflammation. Before modern medicine, these disorders might have been masked by or passed as a milder form of tuberculosis or something else. It's still possible that there are pathogens involved that haven't been identified.

Amezarak 4y ago

Life expectancy after age 5 has not budged much over the centuries, though you’ll find most graphs begin at a trough circa 1900. Prior to that it was about the same as it is now in many countries. So “we’re living longer” is not the answer, it probably has much more to do with the massive amounts of new chemicals and pollutants we’ve exposed ourselves to. No barriers to transport along with unrestrained trade and frequent migration also mean were exposed to way more pathogens than we evolved to encounter, so some of them could also be blowback from legitimate immune responses.

jemmyw 4y ago
https://ourworldindata.org/its-not-just-about-child-mortality-life-expectancy-improved-at-all-ages https://ourworldindata.org/its-not-just-about-child-mortalit... has life expectancies for age ranges from 1841 and shows a huge difference for a 5 year old. If conditions get worse with age then the average going from 55 to 82 (from age 5) could hide a lot of data about these disorders.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19440443/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19440443/ > Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. You see this basically throughout history except in very bad times like famine or major plagues, or were there is persistent dietary issues as we introduced in the late 19thc, or early on in the switch to farming. Rural areas also tend to do better than urban.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    Thanks for the link that is informative.
  - taeric 4y ago
    This feels wrong, though. Measles alone meant you likely lost kids in that age range. Antiseptics, as well, were huge in saving people from from otherwise deadly nicks.

hattar 4y ago

Spondylitis? I’m curious mostly because I received a similar story and diagnosis, but over the last 5-10 years have had multiple doctors second guess what may be affecting me.

jemmyw 4y ago
Yes. Once my mum told me to get a test for the HLA-B27 gene, which was positive, my doctor referred me, while still being doubtful. Consultant didn't second guess at all, she looked over my x-ray and family history and said it was pretty clear. It might seem like bad news but it's such a massive relief knowing and having a path forward treatment wise as I get older.
- dfinninger 4y ago
  I’ve had as AS diagnosis for over a decade now and it was definitely a relief. Just having a name for why I wasn’t “normal”. Why everyone around was able to just do so much more than I could. That this was a real thing, I’m not somehow faking it, and there’s someone who can help. I wish you luck and hope you find some physical relief as well!

tehjoker 4y ago

They are increasing due to COVID. A recent study found a 40% increase in risk after infection. https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-linked-to-40-increase-in-autoimmune-disease-risk-in-huge-study https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-linked-to-40-increase-i...

6nf 4y ago
Do we see the same thing in unvaccinated populations? Like the Amish or PNG or African countries that has super low uptake?
- tehjoker 4y ago
  Not sure, but the difference between a measured amount of bound spike protein and an uncontrolled amount of fully functional spike + other evil proteins like those derived from orf8 and orf6 means I fully expect the virus to be the main problem here.
  - Slava_Propanei 4y ago
    [dead]
  - 6nf 4y ago
    I don’t know if you know this but the vaccine is not a measured amount of bound spike protein at all. It’s mRNA that gets transcribed over and over - each mRNA molecule creates many spikes. Exactly how many depends on many factors in your body. When I’m at a PC again I will link you to some studies showing cases where it exceeds the amount you’d expect in a natural infection and there’s documented cases where it continues weeks after injection unlike the virus which doesn’t last that long in healthy young people.
    - tehjoker 4y ago
      That's fair, but it's a fixed amount of RNA and RNA degrades. The virus can continually create new RNA. COVID has been shown to persist in a fraction of patients, so it will continue for months or years. I don't see how these situations are comparable. Again, the vaccine spike is edited to be bound in the pre-fusion conformation whereas the natural spike is flexible and can bind to ACE2 and expose additional internal inflammatory sites. https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38 https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behi... "Young, healthy people" makes enormous assumptions about a tiny slice of the population. After one or more COVID infections, they may acquire the dreaded "co-morbidities" that a huge fraction if not a majority or supermajority of the population have. Despite how we like to think we have personal control over our circumstances, in this situation, we do not. It is a collective effort and we are failing to control transmission. Vaccines are part of this, as are masking with N95 respirators, testing, air cleaning, paid sick leave, scientific isolation and quarantine periods, etc. I am hopeful that with targeted or universal air cleaning combined with partial population immunity (maintained via periodic vaccine updates) and paid leave, we can push the reproduction number below one. This is a very serious crisis that is worsening in some ways, but we are acting like the physical environment has no bearing on our lives if we think positively.

zackees 4y ago

[dead]

sandworm101 4y ago

I have osgood schlatter syndrome, basically a bone growth on the knee. Had it for decades but not diagnosed until 30s during physical for new job. Zero impacts. No pain. No limitations. No issues whatsoever. But I do have a named syndrome that, in years past, would never have been noticed.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Miner49er 4y ago

I know one study found celiac is increasing, not just being diagnosed more (although it is also being diagnosed more). I'm not sure of other autoimmune diseases. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701082911.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701082911.h...

ksaun 4y ago
Another example of an autoimmune disease that has been becoming more common (not just more frequently diagnosed) is type 1 diabetes (T1D). (From March, 2020): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7146037/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7146037/ (Increased diagnostic capability seems unlikely to be a factor in T1D's prevalence -- when it is triggered, untreated T1D leads to obvious and serious symptoms (eventually death through ketoacidosis) over the course of months. It's not something you can just ignore and power through; treatment is required to survive.)

zug_zug 4y ago

I looked into this a while back, and I believe there are a number of different autoimmune conditions that are definitely going up with no cause known (corroborated by multiple studies). One is linked I also am a bit troubled by how quick people are to dismiss such studies. I think people are operating off of a prior of "big shifts in health don't just happen," which in my opinion is a demonstrably false prior. I think the default prior should be "We're in completely new health waters, testing in production, anything is possible and problems are known and not explained." In particular nobody can explain why eyesight is getting drastically worse. Obesity in the developed world is a big unknown (I think even lab rats weigh more). I believe there's consistent evidence of allergies increasing. And the balance of evidence is that sperm counts are going down, but for whatever reason I think people assume that's a conspiracy theory or just are afraid to believe it. [1] https://www.academia.edu/download/40579191/ijcd-3-4-8.pdf https://www.academia.edu/download/40579191/ijcd-3-4-8.pdf

tremon 4y ago
What level of evidence do you require for those explanations? Because all three observations you mention have credible theories, some even have partial proofs. nobody can explain why eyesight is getting drastically worse The prevailing theory has to do with lack of exercise of the eyeball, i.e. children spend too much time indoors locked at a single viewing depth; children who spend more time in the outdoors tend to have better eyesight. In China they're running broad studies which seem to indicate that children's eyesight stops deteriorating when exposed to more bright daylight: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05156190 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05156190 Obesity in the developed world is a big unknown Sugary/unbalanced foods and sedentary lifestyles? The proofs we have go as far to document the entire systemic changes that ultimately lead to insulin resistance: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6471380/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6471380/ sperm counts are going down There's suspected links to endocrine-disruptive pesticides, but FAFAIK no proven mechanisms.
- krackers 4y ago
  Also wearing glasses when they're not needed. Your eyes will adapt to the accommodative stress presented. If you look at a screen all day, you'll end up with a power of roughly -2 assuming you don't wear any glasses looking at your screen, since your eyes have adapted to treat that 2 feet as optical infinity so it can remain in focus without any accommodation needed. If you then go ahead and wear prescribed glasses for close-work where they are not needed, you again restart the process. Interestingly it has been found that only periphery matters for this process, that's how those fancy glasses like Hoya Miyosmart work, by intentionally defocusing the periphery.

zaptheimpaler 4y ago

The hygiene hypothesis is pretty well proven now as far as I know. Its the idea that early childhood exposure to various germs is important to tune the immune system correctly. It atleast partially explains the rise of autoimmunity. From the wiki: The rise of autoimmune diseases and acute lymphoblastic leukemia in young people in the developed world was linked to the hygiene hypothesis.

zpeti 4y ago
I wonder how our global lifestyle affects this too. You might have had a really dirty childhood in the UK and adapted to all the dirt and toxins there, but then you take a job in Nevada or something and you don’t have childhood immunity to anything there. I’d love a study done on autoimmune disease prominence in expats vs local populations.
- zaptheimpaler 4y ago
  Heres one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31351784/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31351784/

giantg2 4y ago

I think this is a true increase, but don't have anything to back this up. One major reason it might be increasing is our increasingly sterile world. Less exposure to nature, animals, etc , especially as children, might be preventing proper immune function. I also wonder about chemical exposures - food additives, vaccine adjuvants, manufacturing chemicals, etc. Although I think many of those suppress immune function rather than increase it. It is interesting that we don't know how some of these work, but use them anyways. For example, we don't know the mechanisms for vaccine adjuvant work. There's a theory about molecular size, and we know they increase immune response. There's a lot we don't know about the immune system in general.