Clean Living Has Its Down Side

When your immune system has it too cushy it may not be prepared to protect you in tough times. Clean living may actually make us sick. New studies comparing sanitized rats to sewer rats reported in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology found that wild rats had as much as four times higher levels of immunoglobulins than rats living in sanitized cages, yet weren't sick. Their immune system were tuned to fight crucial germs because they had a history of fighting such germs. The rats raised in sanitized systems overreact to even the smallest change in conditions; their systems go crazy.

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

So keeping yourself away from dirt and disease may not be the best way to live. Live life fully and let your immune system do its thing! Martin Luther used to say, "Sin boldly." I think he was suggesting to live life boldly. Being over-concerned about germs and dirt may actually be the best way to give them power when you do have to face them.

OK, I still wash my hands regularly, but I don't get bent out of shape by being exposed to a few germs. I just give my immune system a pep talk--"Go get 'em Immunoglobulins!"

(Source: Seth Borenstein, "Clean living is not necessarily healthy," Ventura County Star, June 17, 2006, p. A-3)