Scientists are debunking the myth that the rise in allergies is due to a modern preoccupation with cleanliness, suggesting rather that we've lost touch with microbial "old friends."
A report from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene released this week challenges the claim that the epidemic rise in allergies is due to overzealous housecleaning and a fondness for bleach cleaners.
Co-author of the report and honorary professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Sally Bloomfield says: "The underlying idea that microbial exposure is crucial to regulating the immune system is right. But the idea that children who have fewer infections, because of more hygienic homes, are then more likely to develop asthma and other allergies does not hold up."
Rather than being "too clean," humans have undergone radical lifestyle changes in the past century, including to their diets and work and home environments, as well as in environmental stress factors, such as physical inactivity in the workplace, which can hinder immunity, noted the scientists. Additionally, they note that even the cleanest houses in modern times are teeming with bacteria, dust mites, viruses, and fungi.
Still, while there is no shortage of microbes in our lives, we are in touch with a smaller diversity of "friendly" microbes than we have been through the course of human history, noted the scientists.
"The rise in allergies and inflammatory diseases seems at least partly due to gradually losing contact with the range of microbes our immune systems evolved with, way back in the Stone Age," writes co-author Dr. Graham Rook. "Only now are we seeing the consequences of this, doubtless also driven by genetic predisposition and a range of factors in our modern lifestyle -- from different diets and pollution to stress and inactivity. It seems that some people now have inadequately regulated immune systems that are less able to cope with these other factors."
Bloomfield hopes this approach will lead to a solution: "One important thing we can do is to stop talking about being too clean' and get people thinking about how we can safely reconnect with the right kind of dirt."
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Rise in allergies is not due to humans being 'too clean,' scientists say
