Why Getting Dirty Can Be Healthy for Children
03 April 2012
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
A new study suggests that early exposure to germs strengthens the immune system. That means letting children get a little dirty might be good for their health later in life.
The study involved laboratory mice. It found that adult mice raised in a germ-free environment were more likely to develop allergies, asthma and other autoimmune disorders. There are more than eighty disorders where cells that normally defend the body instead attack tissues and organs.
They include rheumatoid arthritis, which attacks the joints; Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition; and juvenile diabetes. Hay fever, a common allergy, is also an autoimmune disorder.
Richard Blumberg is a professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He says in nineteen eighty-nine, medical researchers sought to explain these diseases with what they called the "hygiene hypothesis." They proposed that the increasing use of antibacterial soaps and other products, especially early in life, could weaken immune systems.
RICHARD BLUMBERG: "The hypothesis has stated or suggested that early-life exposure to microbes is a very important determinant of later life sensitivity to allergic and so-called autoimmune diseases, such as hay fever, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease and others."
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25