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miriam_eThe Health Report, on Radio National Australia, is such an interesting show. This morning it told of intriguing new research on asthma. When I'd first heard about the cleanliness theory of asthma many years ago it rang such a chord of familiarity with me that I felt it was most of the explanation, and while the new findings certainly don't invalidate the cleanliness theory, it shows things are more complex.
What is the cleanliness theory? It came from findings that asthma is far more prevalent in the devloped world that the developing world, and centers around the fact that our immune systems have to be taught to know what things in the environment are good and what are bad. The idea is that if you bring up children in an excessively clean environment their immune systems don't get all the little challenges necessary to become capable of reacting properly. The reason it resonated so strongly for me is that I had friends who lived in a family where the mother was obsessed with cleaning and those two kids were often ill with asthma and other things, whereas another family was wonderfully untidy, and not clean, and the kids in that family were the strongest, healthiest people I have ever met. (Incidentally I say it was "wonderfully untidy" because we kids always felt at ease there, in contrast to the sterile environment at the other home where we weren't allowed to sit or touch anything.)
The problem with the cleanliness theory is that it is extremely hard to prove. It is easy to find anecdotal evidence like what I've just mentioned, but it has been pointed out that the cleanliness could simply be a response to the asthma, not a cause of it.
The new research detailed in this morning's program implicates some small-molecule aromatic hydrocarbons in possibly having a role to play in provoking asthma. Whether they cause or simply potentiate it is still unknown, but the suspect aromatic hydrocarbons are ones such as benzene and toluene found in cigarette smoke, petroleum, gas stoves, some cleaning products, and some cosmetics.
One odd finding was that there was a link with foam pillows too. The researchers are hard-pressed to explain that. Whether the foam gives off low level hydrocarbon gasses, or whether it has something to do with the kind of casing (feather pillow casings are more impermiable to things like dust mites), or whether the natural fibre pillows "educated" kids immune systems, or whether is was simply an associative effect (families who couldn't afford electric stoves or flues for gas stoves also couldn't afford expensive pillows), who knows?
Maybe someone will do a study which includes cleanliness-obsessed mothers who avoid aromatic products (use soap instead of detergents, etc) and find a clue to all this.
Interesting stuff. We will understand this bitch one day soon.
What is the cleanliness theory? It came from findings that asthma is far more prevalent in the devloped world that the developing world, and centers around the fact that our immune systems have to be taught to know what things in the environment are good and what are bad. The idea is that if you bring up children in an excessively clean environment their immune systems don't get all the little challenges necessary to become capable of reacting properly. The reason it resonated so strongly for me is that I had friends who lived in a family where the mother was obsessed with cleaning and those two kids were often ill with asthma and other things, whereas another family was wonderfully untidy, and not clean, and the kids in that family were the strongest, healthiest people I have ever met. (Incidentally I say it was "wonderfully untidy" because we kids always felt at ease there, in contrast to the sterile environment at the other home where we weren't allowed to sit or touch anything.)
The problem with the cleanliness theory is that it is extremely hard to prove. It is easy to find anecdotal evidence like what I've just mentioned, but it has been pointed out that the cleanliness could simply be a response to the asthma, not a cause of it.
The new research detailed in this morning's program implicates some small-molecule aromatic hydrocarbons in possibly having a role to play in provoking asthma. Whether they cause or simply potentiate it is still unknown, but the suspect aromatic hydrocarbons are ones such as benzene and toluene found in cigarette smoke, petroleum, gas stoves, some cleaning products, and some cosmetics.
One odd finding was that there was a link with foam pillows too. The researchers are hard-pressed to explain that. Whether the foam gives off low level hydrocarbon gasses, or whether it has something to do with the kind of casing (feather pillow casings are more impermiable to things like dust mites), or whether the natural fibre pillows "educated" kids immune systems, or whether is was simply an associative effect (families who couldn't afford electric stoves or flues for gas stoves also couldn't afford expensive pillows), who knows?
Maybe someone will do a study which includes cleanliness-obsessed mothers who avoid aromatic products (use soap instead of detergents, etc) and find a clue to all this.
Interesting stuff. We will understand this bitch one day soon.