• Question: do you believe that our hygeine has stopped our bodys producing antibodies to fight infections?

    Asked by maria10 to MarkF, Mark, Michael, Panos, Sarah on 20 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      No not really. it does not matter how hard we try microbes are always around and we will always get exposed to them one way or another. there is no need to be paranoid about this.

    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I don’t think it has stopped our bodies fighting infections, it seems that it could just make the immune system a little confused. That’s why it over reacts (an allergic response) to harmless substances like dust and pollen.

    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I don’t think so….we still produce antibodies it may be that we shouldn’t be too clean to make sure that as children people develop working immune systems

    • Photo: Mark Travis

      Mark Travis answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      You are definitely along the right lines…..Not such much that hygeine has stopped the immune system producing antibodies, but that a lack of infections stops our immune system being activated. This is proposed to increase our chances of getting allergies in later life (and autoimmune disease as well), according to something called the hygeine hypothesis.

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 20 Jun 2010:

      Antibodies are produced in response to an infection so cleanness will just reduce the numbers of infections you may get and therefore the number of antibodies to anything. Part of the immune response is not justbto produce antibodies but also to produce some regulatory mechanisms that make sure the body doesn’t over react which would also make sure that you don’t overreact to new infections. Withoutnthese mechanisms you can over react to new infections so get sicker with fewer infections.

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