Hygiene Theory Causing A Rise In Allergies?

Is being too clean causing a rise in allergies? According to the Hygiene Theory or Hygiene Hypothesis, it is. As our environment gets increasingly sanitised, it is said that children’s immune systems are not exposed to enough germs to develop antibiotics. According to the market research firm Mintel, Britons spent £612 million on bathing products in 2005; in 2011, the estimated figure will be £709 million.

One clue why this may seem the case is because allergy-related illnesses appear to afflict only the developed world; they are rare or non-existent in poorer, dirtier countries (where, more harmful diseases such as cholera and typhoid are prevalent).

What is getting experts worried is that people may interpret that it is okay to have poor hygiene standards. In reality, the opposite may also be true. Poor hygiene allows bad germs to flourish, and the prevalence of gastrointestinal infections and MRSA, along with norovirus, is an indication that we should not be lax.

There seem to be no end to the differences in opinion in what can be causing the increase in allergy cases. More recently, there is also a growing conviction that it is not extra cleanliness that are making us ill but the benign microbes colonising our gut and skin. What is good news is that research scientists are now focusing their attention on finding out more about the gut and benign microbes, what alternative health practitioners have been suggesting for a long time.

“The mystery attached to microbes has inspired the Human Microbiome Project, akin to the Human Genome Project. This huge undertaking - to catalogue the microbes that live on and inside humans and work out how they affect our health - began last year, funded by the National Institutes of Health in America.”

News source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3863223.ece