[OT] Health and the immune system

[Robert Brockway]

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:

> Sadly, it is not altogether unusual these days in children especially. Both
> my children have allergies to some things, like nuts and peanuts, that can
> be life threatening. Doctors are not sure why there is a such a spike in
> the number of children with allergies and asthma in the West. One of the

I've considered this over a period of time and do wonder to the true
cause.

On the one hand, maybe there is no spike, just improved diagnostic
techniques.  Maybe humans always had a lot of allergies.  Maybe people in
the developing world have as many allergies as we have but they suffer in
silence.  This is certainly true for some other classes of conditions but
I'm not convinced it is the case for allergies.

It has been estabalished (asd you note) that our world is relatively
antiseptic.  Many now believe it is too clean.  We don't eat dirt.  This
may seem like an odd thing to point out, but there is a growing body of
evidence to suggest that eating a small amount of dirt provides trace
elements difficult to find elsewhere[1] and allow the immune system
(particularly the immune system of children) to encounter & fight a
variety of viruses & bacteria.

[1] Some studies have indicated, for example, that a significant
proportion of children in the developed world are deficient in Chromium.
Who would have guessed we need Chromium, certainly not I :)  Eating a
little dirt now and then will supply trace amounts.

Cheers,
	Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: 416-669-3073, Email: rbrockway-wgAaPJgzrDxH4x6Dk/4f9A at public.gmane.org, http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml