Recently I saw a post on Facebook that warned about the overuse of antibiotics in kids. The post offered preventive measures to keep kids healthy, but one in particular really caught my eye.
Kids who play outside more, specifically in the dirt are healthier. Researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system.
Are kids who are “dirtier” healthier than kids living in a sterile, germ-free environment? The answer may surprise you.
A mounting body of research shows that exposing infants and children to germs may offer them greater protection against illness. The theory, is that similar to the brain needing stimulation and interaction to develop, so does the immune system. That the young immune system is strengthened by exposure to germs since it “learns” how to adapt and regulate itself.
Labeled the “hygiene hypothesis” scientists believe that lack of exposure to microbes (found in dirt and dirty surfaces) may actually lead to an increased risk of autoimmune diseases. A study, published in Science in 2012, found that exposure to microbe early in life decreases the number of inflammatory immune cells in the lungs and colon, lowering the risk of asthma, allergies, and inflammatory bowel diseases later in life.
This may help explain the rise in autoimmune diseases in developed countries where sterile, antibiotic-saturated environments are the norm.
In her book “Why Dirt is Good” (Kaplan), Dr. Mary Ruebush, a microbiology and immunology instructor, wrote “What a child is doing when he puts things in his mouth is allowing his immune response to explore his environment, not only does this allow for ‘practice’ of immune responses, which will be necessary for protection, but it also plays a critical role in teaching the immature immune response what is best ignored.”
Dr. Ruebush and others are not suggesting a return to filth and the unsafe germ-filled environment of the 1850’s and certainly hand-washing is essential to good health, but Ruebush writes, “the typical human probably harbors some 90 trillion microbes. The very fact that you have so many microbes of so many different kinds is what keeps you healthy most of the time.”
Ruebush does encourage hand-washing, but limiting use of antibacterial products like hand sanitizers.
But another leading researcher, Dr. Joel V. Weinstock, the director of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston goes even further. He states, “Children should be allowed to go barefoot in the dirt, play in the dirt, and not have to wash their hands when they come in to eat,” he said. Weinstock points out that children who grow up on farms and are frequently exposed to worms and other organisms from farm animals are much less likely to develop allergies and autoimmune diseases.
Weinstock says “let kids have two dogs and a cat,” which will expose them to intestinal worms that can promote a healthy immune system.
I say, “Let them eat dirt!”
From one mom to another,
Jenny Wilson