Why You Should Tell Your Children NOT To Wash Their Hands Before They Eat December 30, 2009

Solid scientific evidence suggests that we may be doing our children more harm than good by raising them in hyper-clean environments. Researchers now suggest that it is better for our children’s health to let them play in the dirt and not wash their hands before they eat all the time.  These scientists are not espousing filthiness, but instead a less paranoid attitude in regard to our children’s cleanliness.

The problem is that maintaining our children in a hyper-clean state prevents their immune system from functioning effectively and can cause autoimmune system disorders such as multiple sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and allergies.

Scientists liken infants’ immune systems to unprogrammed computers that need instruction. Exposure to organisms trains our developing immune systems and provides that instruction. Exposure to organisms gives infants’ immune systems ‘practice’ but also allows it to learn what not to respond to. If our immune system never learns what not to respond to, it could mistake our own tissues for a dangerous organism and an autoimmune disorder is born.

Babies instinctively put everything in their mouth for a reason, they need exposure to many different organisms. The average human harbors 90 trillion microbes which contribute to our health. Young immune systems have a lot to learn in a short period of time so that it doesn’t kill off the helpful organisms along with harmful ones.

For more information, read Dr. Mary Ruebush’s “Why Dirt Is Good.” Another potentially important consequence of living in a hyper-clean world is that humans rarely harbor intestinal worms any more. While that sounds like a great thing to me, researchers have used harmless intestinal worms to both prevent and reverse autoimmune diseases. Dr. Joel V. Weinstock and Dr. David Elliot are at the forefront of this research.

They point out that children who grow up on farms are frequently exposed to these harmless worms and as a result are much less likely to develop allergies and autoimmune disorders. The doctors suggest allowing your children to have “two dogs and a cat” so your children’s immune system can benefit from exposure to a large array or organisms.