Well done trekkie for getting in there first with the difference between vacines & anti biotics. Over use of antibiotics does promote drug resistant bacteria though. It makes sense - if you have 1000 bacteria fighting for food, then kill off 999 of them with an antibiotic, but 1 is naturally resistant to the drug then that 1 now has all the space it needs to multiply with no competition. Very quickly you'll have 1000 bacteria who are all resistant to that drug. This is who "super bugs" are found in hospitals, because they have been exposed to so many different antibiotics that the ones that have survived are resistant to all of them.
As has been stated, there is a well known link between over use of cleanliness & underdeveloped immune systems, which can either not work or overreact and cause hypersensativity.
As for SARS, and other new viruses, I think it is no coincidence that so many of these new bugs come out of China -It's to do with their culture. Chicken & other birds have many many nasty viruses, but their cell structure is so different from ours that the chance of one of their viruses mutating enough to be able to effect us is almost 0. However, the mutation required for the virus to mutate so that it can effect pigs is much smaller. And pigs have the most similar cell structure to humans, so once the pigs have the virus the leap to humans is again much smaller. In China people, pigs & chckens all live in very close proximity, allowing the viruses to pass from species to species until we get a new disease. This is also why so many of the new flu strains come from China.
Originally posted by trekkieI'm an asthmatic and my parents always let me play in dirtiness, they never over protected me. I'm also alergic to cats and horses... Modern hygiene habit might be a cause but it's certainly not the only one. I think that polution might be the biggest responsible for those health problems!
Varg
You are right there is a clear link, sorry i do not have references on me, between hyper clean enviroiments and asthmatics. Whilst it may not be the only cause, it is certainly highly significant.
Asthma is caused by an over active immune system reaction to foriegn particles in the lungs. Mucus is formed to line the brocils (speelling ?, i mean th ...[text shortened]... the body needs (to some extent) childhood disease for the immune system to develop.
-trekkie
I think that someday we'll discover that we've been poisoned for years by the big industrial industries!
Yan
Originally posted by DanforthYan
I'm an asthmatic and my parents always let me play in dirtiness, they never over protected me. I'm also alergic to cats and horses... Modern hygiene habit might be a cause but it's certainly not the only one. I think that polution might be the biggest responsible for those health problems!
I think that someday we'll discover that we've been poisoned for years by the big industrial industries!
Yan
I tried not to be over assertive on all causes of asthma, i was tryng to make a point about immune system development and childhood diseases.
However, you are certainly right about the pollution and chemicals in general causing immune responses.
Look out for a new thread started by me in the near future about the differences between viruses and bacteria, and another one about the affects of modern chemicals on the human body.
-trekkie
ps if Freak or someone else is reading this and wants to start the thread please go ahead, i think an informative dicussion here would be useful.