Sunday, February 04, 2007
Do we get autoimmune diseases because we are too sanitary?
I've long harbored the suspicion -- based more on agreement with George Carlin than any actual knowlege -- that our obsession with cleanliness is actually weakening our resistance to disease. Our immune systems don't get enough "practice." Bizarrely, there is also evidence that in rare cases parasites can tune the human immune system when it is otherwise out of whack. Almost three years ago I wrote about a study that showed that "pig whipworm" infection could put Crohn's disease into remission. Now there is evidence out of Argentina (reg. req.) that other parasites can slow or even stop the progression of multiple sclerosis (which is, like Crohn's, an autoimmune disorder).
Parasitic infection in multiple sclerosis (MS) may benefit patients by modulating the immune response and altering the natural course of the disease, a new study suggests.
Investigators from the Raúl Carrea Institute for Neurological Research in Buenos Aires, Argentina, found that MS patients with eosinophilia caused by intestinal parasites had a significantly lower number of relapses, minimal changes in disability scores, and significantly lower activity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) compared with uninfected MS patients.
"Parasitic infection has been shown to alter the immune response and confer a protective effect in animal models. However, this is the first time it has been shown in humans with MS," the study's principal investigator, Jorge Correale, MD, told Medscape.
The question is, why?
6 Comments:
By 
knighterrant, at
Sun Feb 04, 02:31:00 PM:
I'm not a doctor, my only medical training is learning how to take aspirin. But I believe that the immune system is like every other part of the human body - it gets better with use.
You can't spend the first 20 years of your life laying in bed and expect to get up and run a marathon. If you take antibiotics every time you get the sniffles you can't expect your immune system to be strong enough to fight infections on its own.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sun Feb 04, 03:06:00 PM:
The current explanation tends more toward the idea that our immune systems are all dressed up with no place to go because they no longer have to fight parasites and infections. Thus, the enormous increase in allergies in the US over the past few decades.
My two American children have multiple allergies. My two Romanian children have none.
I would this suspect that giving the immune system something useful to do keeps it from wandering around you body on a hair-trigger, ready to attack the first thing it sees.
By Hell_Is_Like_Newark, at
Sun Feb 04, 09:06:00 PM:
my mother suffers from Crohns (which seems to attack those with semitic blood). I forwarded the link to my old-man. Her condidtion has been getting a bit worse recently, though physically, she is strong as hell (she plays competitve tennis in her 70's).
By Papa Ray, at
Mon Feb 05, 12:25:00 AM:
I always knew my Mama was wise beyond her years. When I was a kid in the late fortys, early fiftys, I remember telling her one day that the teacher said to wash our hands a lot so we wouldn't get sick.
My Mama said something to the effect- 'Son, I wash my hands when they are dirty, Just don't go sticking your fingers in your mouth after being around the chickens and if you cut your hand, let me know and I'll put a little kerosene on it. When I asked her about germs, which the teacher had told us about, she had this to say. ' germs is a part of life, most will just make you sick for a little while, until you get used to them. Don't go worrying your head too much about them germs".
If I recall right, I was sick enough to miss school only about three or four times in over ten years of my childhood. The flu knocked me back two days, a bout with an ear infection for a couple of other days. No medical care, as we were poor and lived way out in the sticks.
Amazing all us kids survived, swiming in dirty water, playing in dirt, eating with dirty hands and a multitude of other dangers that modern children couldn't handle now, and that would give their parents a heart attack.
I sure miss my Mama...
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
By 
, at
Mon Feb 05, 05:24:00 PM:
Also in the political sphere we suffer from autoimmune reaction and allergy.
The Western Left turns against the very societies which are, with their tolerance and affluence, the precondition for their existence. Spoilt by the decades-long lack of existentially-felt external challenges, they have become accustomed to turning their aggression inwards.
Michael, Germany
By Nancy Reyes, at
Mon Feb 05, 07:36:00 PM:
Well, things are more complicated than that.
We docs suspect MS is a complication of a virus, worse if you get it later in life rather than as a kid, so it's more common in "clean" countries. Mononucleosis, for example, is mild in kids, but bad in adults. Ditto Hepatitis A.
But "autoimmune" diseases like Rheumatoid Arthritis and lupus are much, much more common in Native Americans, even though the hygiene is not as high.
Which brings us to another question: Ethnicity. Did they consider ethnic background of their subjects?
