gained favor with researchers who have begun to work out exactly why this may be the case. Some of these concepts were elegantly addressed by Weiss in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled Eat Dirt-The Hygiene Hypothesis and Allergic Disease.


There is no doubt that modern public health measures, such as adequate sewage systems, water treatment, the use of antibiot- ics, and various other aspects of modern hygiene have lessened deadly infectious outbreaks and have prevented unnecessary deaths. However, as with most things, there is a yin and yang. This new “clean world” has likely resulted in a lack of adequate sampling of our environment, including a lack of exposure to all of the microbes that we share our planet with, particularly while we are young and our immune systems are developing the delicate balance between adequate defense and tolerance of our surroundings.


In a 2010 paper in Nature Reviews-Immunology entitled Farm


Living-Effects of Childhood Asthma and Allergy, authors Mutius and Vercelli state: “Numerous epidemiological studies have shown


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32 Natural Nutmeg - March 2018


Microbe Species Klebsiella


Citrobacter, Klebsiella, Proteus, Porphyromonas


Yersinia S. Pyogenes


Camphylobacter Chlamydia


E. coli, Proteus


Disorder


Ankylosing Spondylitis Rheumatoid Arthritis


Grave’s Disease & Hashimoto’s Dz. Rheumatic Fever


Gullian Barre Syndrome Multiple Sclerosis


Autoimmunity in general


TABLE 1: SELECTED ASSOCIATIONS OF MICROBIAL OVERGROWTH AND AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS


that children who grow up on traditional farms are protected from asth- ma, hay fever and allergic sensitization. Early-life contact with livestock and consumption of unprocessed cow’s milk have been identified as the most protective exposures.”


Does this mean that our children who are: 1) growing up in more urban and suburban environments; 2) living in comparatively sterile homes; 3) drinking chlorinated water; 4) being bathed and scrubbed daily with anti-bacterial soap; 5) not being allowed to play in the dirt; 6) being given antibiotics every time they have a sniffle…are actually being harmed from an immunologic perspective and will carry this dys- function with them throughout their entire lives? This is likely the case, and one of the reasons why, as parents of two young boys, my wife and I constantly try and balance the need for cleanliness with allowing them to be children and dig in the dirt, play in the stream in our backyard, and otherwise sample their living environment.


The Role of Parasites As reported by David Gutierrez in NaturalNews, researchers in a


study conducted at the University of Nottingham, point out that humans and gastrointestinal parasites might have co-evolved in a way that the parasites actually help regulate the human immune system to prevent allergies. They believe that over the course of millions of years, gastro- intestinal parasites, such as various worms (helminths) have evolved the ability to suppress the human immune system as a survival mechanism. Because parasitic infestation has been so common throughout human evolutionary history, the human immune system has in turn evolved to compensate for this effect. This means that if the parasites are rapidly removed from the population (as has happened with modern hygiene, water treatment and the use of antimicrobial drugs), the immune system may then actually function too strongly, resulting in maladaptive im- mune responses such as asthma, allergies, and eczema. To test this concept the researchers studied over 1,500 children in rural villages in Vietnam where parasitic infestation with hookworm is still extremely common and allergies are not. Medical eradication of parasitic infection resulted in skyrocketing incidence of allergy, including dust mite sensi- tivity, supporting the hypothesis that parasites were favorably modulat- ing their immune response.


With issues such as the hygiene hypothesis, and the role of para- sites in immune function in mind, gastroenterologist and researcher Dr. Joel Weinstock, originally at the University of Iowa, and now Tufts Uni- versity, has performed novel work with subjects with the autoimmune disorder inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD was unheard of before the 20th century. Beginning of 20th century incidence is thought to be about 1:10,000 and is now 1:250.


Similar data exists with the incidences of asthma, hay fever, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, etc. Weinstock conducted various studies


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