War on the Bogeymicrobe Update
Still don’t believe that our attempts to raise our kids in a sterile environment are counterproductive? Here’s the latest:
WASHINGTON — Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and on farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate.
The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.
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When the immune cells in the wild rats are stimulated by researchers, “they just don’t do anything, they sit there; if you give the same stimulus to the lab rats, they go crazy,” said a study co-author, Dr. William Parker, a Duke University professor of experimental surgery. He compared lab rodents to more than 50 wild rats and mice captured and killed in cities and farms.
Also, the wild mice and rats had as much as four times higher levels of immunoglobulins, yet weren’t sick, showing an immune system tuned to fight crucial germs, but not minor irritants, Parker said. He said what happened in the lab rats is what likely occurs in humans: Their immune systems have got it so cushy they overreact to the smallest of problems.
Hit your mouse and keyboard with a spritz of your favorite spray-on disinfectant and go read the whole thing.
As I suggested in a previous post, it’s probably not such a great idea to be washing tons of antibacterial chemicals down the drain, anyway. Those drains go somewhere.
Filed under: Science, Health, Medicine, Environment
3 Responses to “War on the Bogeymicrobe Update”
I wrote a paper on the use of antimicrobials and antibiotics for microbio class in college. Scary stuff! I mean, basic hygine is one thing (washing your hands after certain bodily functions, not eating food that’s been on the floor for longer than a few seconds, etc.), but germ paranoia is dangerous.
Comment by turq on June 17, 2006 at 8:11 pm.
Yup. I’d enjoy reading your paper.
Comment by Chris on June 17, 2006 at 8:17 pm.
I wonder if I still have a copy of the thing. The only paper I -know- I have a copy of is my psych final, since I wrote it two hours before it was due, BS’d the whole thing, and aced the final with a perfect score. I am both exceptionally proud, and exceptionally ashamed of that one.
Comment by turq on June 20, 2006 at 1:34 am.