Healthy Bytes

Can you be too clean?

read time: 231 words, a minute or so

Sanitation was voted as the greatest medical advance in the last 166 years (since 1840) by more than 11,000 doctors and scientists worldwide.

In fact, increases in average life expectancy is largely due to two things: better sanitation and antibiotics.
You probably don’t know what life was like before sewers, clean water and doctors actually washing their hands before delivering babies and performing surgery.

All good. But can you over do it, can you be too clean?
Well a few studies say so.
Have you noticed antibacterial everything – soap, wipes, laundry detergent and numerous other products.

Here’s the thing. An immune system needs to be “developed”. It needs to be exposed to germs so that it develops the ability to battle them.
What is a vaccine? It’s a small amount of a virus. It stimulates the immune system to develop antibodies so that if you’re subsequently exposed to the virus you’ll have the ability to shut it down.

A weak immune system is more vulnerable to disease.

Now for all of the last century, average lifespan in the U.S. increased. BUT for kids born in this century, it is predicted they will NOT outlive their parents, i.e., average lifespan is going to drop.

Why? Lifestyle diseases resulting from poor nutrition. Not because this is a third world country. Because we have substituted real food for processed food. Survival of the fittest.

This entry was posted on Thu, 25.Jan.2007 at 7:33 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.