Developed World Allergy "Epedemic"

[OfficePants]

This is an excellent documentary that elaborates the reasons why there is such a large increase in allergies in the developed world.

Discuss.

 

[OfficePants]

I read chicks. Both may be true.

 

[Thruth]

This is not surprising at all. Anti-microbial soaps, cleaners, hand wipes because people are scared of bacteria. New homes built so tightly for energy efficiency that you need an air exchanger.

Urbanization plays a huge role but also parents who try to protect their children from the world. Little pale, wheezing kids in bubbles.

Bottom line is people just need to eat some dirt.

 

[doghouse]

This is not surprising at all. Anti-microbial soaps, cleaners, hand wipes because people are scared of bacteria. New homes built so tightly for energy efficiency that you need an air exchanger.

Urbanization plays a huge role but also parents who try to protect their children from the world. Little pale, wheezing kids in bubbles.

Bottom line is people just need to eat some dirt.

I support this 1000%. People need to exercise their immune systems for them to work. I have finally gotten my wife on board as she was pretty germaphobic.

Of course I have had wicked hay fever since I was a kid.

 

[Thruth]

I support this 1000%. People need to exercise their immune systems for them to work. I have finally gotten my wife on board as she was pretty germaphobic.

Of course I have had wicked hay fever since I was a kid.

But hay fever was always the minor allergy that people suffered from before the world became allergic to everything under the sun. Now I guess it includes the sun?

 

[doghouse]

Apparently.

 

[OfficePants]

That documentary shifted my thinking. We should actually be allowing colonies of bacteria to live on our skin and in our bodies. But hey, Purell will commission another study and muddy the water.

Also, antibiotics are much more damaging to our bodies than I had thought.

 

[doghouse]

That documentary shifted my thinking. We should actually be allowing colonies of bacteria to live on our skin and in our bodies. But hey, Purell will commission another study and muddy the water.

Also, antibiotics are much more damaging to our bodies than I had thought.

I've been on that train for years.

 

[OfficePants]

I've been on that train for years.

I can't find it, but I saw something once about implanting skinny people butt bacteria into fatties and they thinned out.

 

[OfficePants]

Here it is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...186da2-488b-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/h...s-can-slim-mice-down.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-make-us-fat-and-thin/

 

[doghouse]

^ I vaguely recall that.

 

[Thruth]

That documentary shifted my thinking. We should actually be allowing colonies of bacteria to live on our skin and in our bodies. But hey, Purell will commission another study and muddy the water.

Also, antibiotics are much more damaging to our bodies than I had thought.

I've been on that train for years.

I am actually a bit surprised that the general public does not understand the importance of microorganisms in terms of our own physiology and the environment around us. I am glad OfficePants posted that documentary. It should be widely disseminated. When I started listening to it as I drove I said to myself, "Ok, what kind of dumb-ass quackery am I going to hear". But the minute I heard the guy looking for deer shit I knew it was going to go in a good direction.

The overuse of antibacterial products and overprescription of antibiotics and the prescription of the wrong antibiotic for a particular infection has had two major deleterious effects. The first is that they interfere with maintaining the diversity of the normal bacterial flora within us, hence the rise in allergies. The second and more negative impact of this is that resistant bugs have developed and we are on the verge of no longer having effective antibiotics to fight major infections.

 

[doghouse]

The second and more negative impact of this is that resistant bugs have developed and we are on the verge of no longer having effective antibiotics to fight major infections.

Yeah, this is huge. Some of these infections are seriously scary these days.

Then again, humanity could use a good plague once and awhile.

 

[OfficePants]

I am actually a bit surprised that the general public does not understand the importance of microorganisms in terms of our own physiology and the environment around us. I am glad OfficePants posted that documentary. It should be widely disseminated. When I started listening to it as I drove I said to myself, "Ok, what kind of dumb-ass quackery am I going to hear". But the minute I heard the guy looking for deer shit I knew it was going to go in a good direction.

The overuse of antibacterial products and overprescription of antibiotics and the prescription of the wrong antibiotic for a particular infection has had two major deleterious effects. The first is that they interfere with maintaining the diversity of the normal bacterial flora within us, hence the rise in allergies. The second and more negative impact of this is that resistant bugs have developed and we are on the verge of no longer having effective antibiotics to fight major infections.

I'm pretty sure we're headed for a global breakout of something new that will kill a billion people. Perhaps we need to trim the fat, the world is overpopulated, but guess whose going first this time? The Purell crowd.

 

[Thruth]

I'm pretty sure we're headed for a global breakout of something new that will kill a billion people. Perhaps we need to trim the fat, the world is overpopulated, but guess whose going first this time? The Purell crowd.

I am all for a cull of the Purell crowd. They are walking contradictions. Recycling, immunization-avoiding tree-huggers who slather antibacterials all over them and the things they touch because they can't bring themselves to put their delicate paws on the shopping cart handle that Cletus used down to the Walmart.

 

[OfficePants]

My girlfriend loves this thread. She asked me to add this, and to support the kickstart:

http://redefininghuman.com/

 

[OfficePants]

I am all for a cull of the Purell crowd. They are walking contradictions. Recycling, immunization-avoiding tree-huggers who slather antibacterials all over them and the things they touch because they can't bring themselves to put their delicate paws on the shopping cart handle that Cletus used down to the Walmart.

Not to mention that asia crowd walking around with the masks. Or the dog owners that go crazy when Rover eats a piece of shit.

 

[Thruth]

Not to mention that asia crowd walking around with the masks. Or the dog owners that go crazy when Rover eats a piece of shit.

I would also add in stupid docs who write the wrong Rx's for antibiotics

 

[Grand Potentate]

Not to mention that asia crowd walking around with the masks. Or the dog owners that go crazy when Rover eats a piece of shit.

To be fair to the AZN's, most of them walk around with the masks to filter out bird flu or pollution. Both of which are worthwhile causes.

Our work life setup in this country is a major cause of this. No paid vacation so you can stay at home and rest from the Bolivian death flu you picked up from your breeding ground child? Get an antibiotic and kill it all off. Of course, that's after you've already gone into the office and infected everyone in your workspace.

 

[Allen Smithee]

I'm on antibiotics right now. I'm also eating probiotic yogurt.

 

[OfficePants]

I'm on antibiotics right now. I'm also eating probiotic yogurt.

Then you're even...

 

[Thruth]

Then you're even...

Maybe....

 

[Allen Smithee]

If I take a couple antibiotic pills instead of the whole regimen is that really bad?

 

[Thruth]

If I take a couple antibiotic pills instead of the whole regimen is that really bad?

yes. it is better both in terms of clearing up you UTI and reducing the likelihood of contributing to the development of resistant strains. Either finish it or don't take it at all

 

[Thruth]

I'm not a dr. But thruth is right.

Yup, had a "friend" who had a UTI. Only took 1/2 the Rx. His dick fell off and got flesh-eating disease and lost a leg. Now he posts long winded rants on menswear foras and pretends he knows what he is talking about.

True story. My friend. Did I mention that?

 

[Zé Ferreira]

So, is my probiotic yogurt damning me to fall in the eventual zombie apocolypse? (I Am Legend zombies, obviously)

 

[Thruth]

So, is my probiotic yogurt damning me to fall in the eventual zombie apocolypse? (I Am Legend zombies, obviously)

only if you are just starting to eat probiotic yogurt as your bowel disruption will slow you down as you try to escape. if you have been on probiotics for 2 weeks or more you will have an extra spring in your step increasing your chance of survival

 

[Allen Smithee]

only if you are just starting to eat probiotic yogurt as your bowel disruption will slow you down as you try to escape.

I think the probiotic made me poop more.

 

[Thruth]

I think the probiotic made me poop more.

It's like going to Mexico for the first time

 

[OfficePants]

A mouthful of seawater would do more than any phony probiotic product.

 

[Thruth]

A mouthful of seawater would do more than any phony probiotic product.

One should always be suspect of commercially prepared concoctions that purport to be of benefit for us

 

[Allen Smithee]

It's like going to Mexico for the first time

how do i make it stop?

 

[Thruth]

It will settle down after you've been on it for a while. You will stop shitting through a straw or if you aren't you will get back to normalish

 

[OfficePants]

The news was full of stories about artificial sweeteners, but this critical tidbit is getting pretty ignored. Again, back to gut bacteria.

http://www.economist.com/news/scien...stitutes-may-mess-gut-bacteriacausing-obesity

Several previous studies have suggested that artificial sweeteners might affect intestinal bacteria. But the Nature paper, whose lead authors are Eran Elinav and Eran Segal, of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel, is the most robust yet. Like much biomedical research, the initial work was done in mice. Three groups of rodents were given water containing aspartame, sucralose or saccharin, three common commercial sugar substitutes. Three control groups were given plain water or water laced with glucose or sucrose—sugars from which the body can extract energy.

After a week, Dr Elinav and Dr Segal gave their animals a hefty dose of glucose and measured how well they processed it (inability to do so properly is a risk factor for obesity, and is characteristic of diabetes). The mice drinking the artificial sweeteners had higher levels of glucose in their blood than did their confrères who had been sipping water or ordinary sugar.

To check whether the sweeteners were affecting the murine microbiome, the researchers dosed their mice with broad-spectrum antibiotics. Sure enough, killing off the gut bacteria reversed the metabolic changes. To make doubly sure, they transplanted faeces from mice that had been drinking artificial sweeteners into others that had been raised in sterile conditions, and which, therefore, had no gut bacteria of their own. Once the transplanted bacteria had colonised their new hosts, these too began showing signs of glucose intolerance. Gene sequencing confirmed that mice fed artificial sweeteners had a notably different set of bacteria living in their guts from those fed on the natural kind. Intriguingly, the microbiomes of the sweetener-fed mice looked a lot like those found, by other studies, in obese individuals.

And:

Unlike those of mice—animals which are enthusiastic eaters of each others’ faeces, and which thereby regularly swap gut bacteria—the microbiomes of humans differ from one individual to the next, says Dr Elinav. It is a lot to hang on one small experiment, but if the unpleasant effects of artificial sweeteners affect only some people, that could explain why the large epidemiological studies have failed to find that they consistently make people fat.