3 ms·

I'm surprised that the article didn't touch on differences in childhood mortality rates. The theory proposed has always made a lot of sense to me. However, I wo

by pcl 14y ago

I'm surprised that the article didn't touch on differences in childhood mortality rates. The theory proposed has always made a lot of sense to me. However, I would expect any reporting on the topic to consider the extent to which the allergy-sufferers amongst us (such as myself) made it through childhood because of better early childhood medical care, thus skewing the later-in-life allergies and autoimmune disease stats downwards.

hmsimha 14y ago
That's an excellent point.
wazoox 14y ago
That seems obvious, however AFAIK infant mortality is not much higher in eastern Europe and Russia than in the west, so this probably doesn't apply there.
lignuist 14y ago
In 2011 under-5 mortality (m/f): Russia 18/14 per 1000 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/russia/report-2011 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/russia/report-2011 Finland 5/4 per 1000 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/finland/report-2011 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/finland/report-2011
eric-hu 14y ago
I wondered the same thing. As a follow-up to wazoox's comment, I looked into the mortality rates of the areas for the studies. I couldn't find the infant mortality rates of Petrozavodsk, so I went to region (Republic of Karelia) instead: Infant mortality rate of Karelia in 2000 [1]: 14.4 % Of Finland: [2] 2.6 - 4.5 % So at a 3-7x higher incident rate, infant mortality does seems like a reasonable hypothesis. I wouldn't jump on the one-explanation-covers-it-all stance though. Someone else in this thread mentioned Helmenthic therapy, using parasites in a controlled manner to treat for allergies. If this treatment has seen positive results, perhaps both your point and the proposed theory explain the higher incidence of auto-immune diseases in first world countries. [1] http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12668 http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12668 [2] http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12348 http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12348
- pcl 14y ago
  Great links, thanks! Agreed that both probably have an impact. I imagine that there's some sort of scientific method out there to tease out the impacts of the two factors, probably via an aggregation of a number of such studies.

by pcl 14y ago

hmsimha 14y ago

That's an excellent point.

wazoox 14y ago

That seems obvious, however AFAIK infant mortality is not much higher in eastern Europe and Russia than in the west, so this probably doesn't apply there.

lignuist 14y ago

In 2011 under-5 mortality (m/f): Russia 18/14 per 1000 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/russia/report-2011 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/russia/report-2011 Finland 5/4 per 1000 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/finland/report-2011 https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/finland/report-2011

eric-hu 14y ago

I wondered the same thing. As a follow-up to wazoox's comment, I looked into the mortality rates of the areas for the studies. I couldn't find the infant mortality rates of Petrozavodsk, so I went to region (Republic of Karelia) instead: Infant mortality rate of Karelia in 2000 [1]: 14.4 % Of Finland: [2] 2.6 - 4.5 % So at a 3-7x higher incident rate, infant mortality does seems like a reasonable hypothesis. I wouldn't jump on the one-explanation-covers-it-all stance though. Someone else in this thread mentioned Helmenthic therapy, using parasites in a controlled manner to treat for allergies. If this treatment has seen positive results, perhaps both your point and the proposed theory explain the higher incidence of auto-immune diseases in first world countries. [1] http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12668 http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12668 [2] http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12348 http://www.arcticstat.org/TableViewer.aspx?S=2&ID=12348

pcl 14y ago
Great links, thanks! Agreed that both probably have an impact. I imagine that there's some sort of scientific method out there to tease out the impacts of the two factors, probably via an aggregation of a number of such studies.