Friday, June 16, 2006

In da news....

Posted by Sickboy at 9:00 PM
Now from here on out, I dont wanna hear about you guys washing your hands for anything, ok? Read on....

WASHINGTON Jun 16, 2006 (AP)— Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and 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.

The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems aren't being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body's natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen.

The new studies, one of which was published Friday in the peer reviewed Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, found significant differences in the immune systems between euthanized wild and lab rodents.

So, now Im only gonna shower twice a month. Thatll get my immune system used to dirt and germs...anyone else up for it?

3 comments:

Martin said...

In my office we have a monitoring station called "the box". People cycle through the box on a daily rotation. There are some people that insist on spraying Lysol on the keyboard and phone. Coincidentaly, these people are calling in sick more often then those of us who allow our immune systems to develop naturally and build an immunity to germs.

11:55 PM CDT
dad-e~O said...

there was a study a few years ago about how people who eat their own boogers have higher tollerece to germs and infection.
crazy man

2:26 AM CDT
steve butt said...

george carlin has a joke about how when he was growing up in new york city there was a polio epidemic. he said that none of the kids in his neighborhood came down with polio and he attributted it to the fact that they went swimming in the east river.

12:23 AM CDT

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