Save your children from allergic disorders!

[Creed of Heresy]

So I was reading a journal of someone I watch and it got me curious as to what allergies exactly are and what causes them. So I rolled on over to the wikipedias and the googles and started looking up information. Turns out there's no theory yet on allergies but they do have a solid hypothesis, with evidence working in the favor of the hypothesis so far, so there may be something to it.

Hygiene Hypothesis - Wikipedia

It seems that the human body is designed to handle a certain level of pathogens. Our race having grown up in squalor, it's naturally adapted and evolved to have a high-level response to foreign pathogens. Our ancestral genetic memory basically is encoded for dealing with diseases that we have no name for that existed by the thousands that our early immune systems had to compensate for and learn to resist.

Nowadays we live in conditions that can best be described as "too clean." Areas of the globe where conditions are unclean and far from sterile display lower levels of allergic reactions, NOT because there was no observation of it as we first thought before, however. Indeed, observational studies taking place in regions like Africa or the Middle East or undeveloped Asia have shown that the rate of allergic reactions IS much lower there than here.

The way it works is that our immune systems, programmed to handle the onslaught of diseases, germs, and bacteria that it's used to dealing with, is suddenly [by the standards of the time of our existence on this planet anyway] being faced with...

Not all that much.

And you see, this is actually not that good. The lack of exposure to pathogens essentially has our immune system, for lack of a better term, bored. So it starts attacking antigens and harmless microbes like pollen and wheat-germ and the like, leading to allergic reactions as the body reprograms to assault these things that it really doesn't need to fight. The reactions from the immune system response is what leads to the symptoms of allergies. It's your body panicking about nothing, because it has nothing else to panic about when its instincts are "panic when invaded."

So, save your children, save your friends, save your family...

AND STOP FUCKING BUYING ANTIMICROBIAL SOAPS AND ANTI-MICROBIAL SPRAYS, YOU IDIOTS! Same studies have shown that children who grow up in excessively sterilized environments, especially in those households where the parents are spraying anti-microbial spray on fucking EVERYTHING in their weird panic over sickness are far more likely to develop allergic symptoms than those who do not.

[Kousbroek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo

[TarShoduze]

I'm seventeen. Is it too late to change?

[downbeatplumb]

People go too far. Use the soaps and the anti-microbials when it is appropriate and not all the time.

As the great David Mitchell once said when told that an average chopping board harbours more bacteria than a toilet seat.
"In that case it obviously doesn't matter!"

[KichigaiNeko]

Guilty as charged!!

I would go berserk with the bleach etc when the kids were little... Got the title of "Domestos* Queen" thankfully the kids survived




*Domestos- a Hospital grade thick Sodium Hypochlorite bleach/ disinfectant.

[Annik]

It should also be pointed out that improper use of these antibacterial products (you'd be surprised how many of them aren't used correctly) will leave behind pathogens that are resistant. This is how MRSA was developed (well, the improper use of antibiotics, but the principle is the same).

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

I only use that antibacterial soap stuff (the kind that dries on its own, don't know what it's called) at restaurants before eating. Bring a little bottle with me everywhere for that. For everything else I use normal soap.

[Minimalist]

When I was in grade school - early 60's - it seemed to me that every second kid brought peanut butter and jelly for lunch. Not only did no one ever die - no one ever got sick and started convulsing on the floor.

So now, 50 years later, we see schools banning peanut products.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26124593/n...NftRHeHN5c

More schools than ever are banning peanuts and peanut products as the number of kids diagnosed with the potentially life-threatening allergy has climbed dramatically in recent years. While doctors try to figure out the reasons for the rise, the situation pits parents against each other and puts school districts in the middle.

Studies have shown that the rate of diagnosis of this condition grew exponentially between 1997 and 2003. How is it possible for an allergy to develop so rapidly in a population which had been exposed to peanuts at will before?

It makes no sense.

[KichigaiNeko]

Wasn't there some fungal issue with "ground-nuts/ peanuts" around that time??

*goes off searching

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http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname...e&dbid=101

Peanuts
An Important Message About Peanuts

We have placed peanuts on our "10 Most Controversial WHFoods List." This list was created to let you know that even though some foods (like peanuts) can make an outstanding contribution to your meal plan, they are definitely not for everyone. Peanuts can be difficult to find in high-quality form; can be more commonly associated with adverse reactions than other foods; and can present more challenges to our food supply in terms of sustainability. More details about our 10 Most Controversial WHFoods can be found here.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

My dad is extremely allergic to all nuts. He's nearly died once or twice because of nuts. My sister is the same way but she's also allergic to avocado and and I think also peaches. I'm not allergic to anything as far as I know. I can eat enough nuts to make a squirrel jealous and be just fine.