Scientists sniffing out the Western allergy epidemic

Children born without cesarean sections? Check. Children nursed by mother for months after birth? Check. Children played outside in dirt and wild plants every day? (Largely) check. Had living plants at home? (Occasionally) check. But the children in my parents' families (including eleven who were brought up on a farm) and the children in my birth family and the children I now have (and their cousins in another country) still have quite a few problems with allergies. There surely is some family history involved in our susceptibility to allergies, as well as childhood environmental factors from our upbringing. Learning about the environmental factors is helpful, especially for understanding whole-country-scale epidemiological trends, but full understanding of the causes and treatments of allergies will have to come from studies with genetically sensitive designs.

EDIT: it turns out that my memory was faulty, the research was into light chains, which is related to inflammatory conditions (http://www.jni-journal.com/article/S0165-5728(09)00012-5/abs...). The research on fine particles is this (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1743-8977-7-35), which a friend gave me. Guess I read too much crap. Sorry!

My wife was involved (Masters thesis) in some primary research into the causes of asthma / other allergies involving the respiratory system. It was experimental research (which involved lab mice, iirc), not statistical.

Her results showed that fine particles of a certain size caused damage that would cause respiratory problems (i.e. asthma).

Luckily in Europe at least there regulations are getting stronger over time; that's why we're all driving cars with catalytic converters and filters.

What is the state of the cleanliness theory these days ?

What state of proposed-debunked-revisited is that in ?

The narrative that one could be raised in too clean of an environment which then leads to an immune system on a hair-trigger is a sensible and compelling one, but I wonder how accepted it is in 2014 ?

>But generations before did not suffer from this epidemic, so what is it that's making us so allergic in our modern world?

How do we know this is true? I always assumed some middle aged lady in 1803 had just the same problems with ragweed as any of us. In absence of contrary evidence, this of course is the logical assumption.

If we are talking about things like eczema and asthma, I'm more inclined to believe this, but I'd still like to see some evidence.

I cured my asthma. After my first attack the doctor put me on inhaled steroids - this is a lifelong treatment that has some side effects. He said my lung function was that of an 84 year old (I was 43). I found that magnesium helped, and later learned that Iodine can be beneficial too. I started taking both daily as well as reducing my BMI from ~33 down to ~29. I had the lungs retested after going off meds for a few weeks and they "functioned above average". So I'm off the meds and feel great.

On a related note, I used to get sick pretty much every year and was the first in the house to get things. Since I started the iodine a year ago, I have not had so much as a cold, while my family got a couple bad things over the winter. This is more anecdotal than the asthma of course, as that's a thing you can test where catching stuff is more random.

Sample size of 1, but I quit eating sugar two months ago and my allergies (or allergy-like symptoms) are almost gone. That's after a lifetime of a stuffed up nose and frequent sinus infections. The weird thing is my nose cleared up after around 5 days, but the sinus headache lasted another two weeks. My hunch is that I'm prone to fungal infections, but who knows.

A bit of a tangent, but it's really a shame that triclosan use is still so ubiquitous in the United States. It does way more harm than good. Only one state (Minnesota) has actually taken a stance toward limiting its public use, which won't even go into effect for another three years.

Terrible "study". Why compare to some traditional tribe? The number of confounding variables is incredibly high.

Why not to compare to their neighbor without allergies? That might actually teach you something.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned paracites/worms.

Areas of the world where worm infection is prevalent and the areas of the world where allergies/autoimmune diseases are prevalent have almost no overlap.

There is even evidence to suggest that infection by certain larvae can actually alleviate certain conditions (like inflammatory bowel disease) although this research is at a very early stage and carries risk (you certainly shouldn't try it as a DIY solution, for sure!).

Forgive the long post - I still am missing some clarity.

1. Holier than thou / positive thinking

This just irks me : "I breast feed, therefore I am better than you" is the short hand I can give. It smacks of the same rather arrogant and unforgiving Oprah-style idea that you can have good things happen to you by positive thinking (as opposed to selection bias) and therefore if bad things happen to you it's your fault for not being positive enough. It is closely linked to the faulty thinking that leads people to turn off their mobile charger before getting on an airplane.

2. Bacteria is not a grey goo

The theory seems to be we have destroyed our bacterial ecosystems and this will have some effect. - it seems a very likely and good theory. Except that instead of making the leap to "1/3 of us have wiped out bacteria X, or bacterial group Y" we leap to "good Bacteria and bad bacteria" and we should somehow replace it with other peoples fecal matter.

I will go with Tokenadult on this - or perhaps one step further. My conjecture is one set of bacteria is responsible for the allegen protection (probably one set per allergen) and that may well have a genetic jigsaw component to match. This is a wildly complicated picture to assemble and will be quite provable. Add in the next most likely cause - some hitherto unnoticed poison we are throwin around like fire retardants, and there is a lot of research to be done.

3. The causes don't seem to match the sufferers

Obese != allergic. Sedentary != allergic. At least use tobacco smoking and lung cancer correlation rates as our gold standard here. Maybe we do (I am lacking the google-fu to find it) but I will be amazed if every obese sedentary Caesarian born anti-biotic taking person is allergic to pollen - in fact I would bet there is a large and worthwhile study to be done for those that aren't.

4. The comparisons are apples to oranges - I think.

I was struck by the 1/3 of us westerners and 1/1500 of those hunter gathers statistic. That's an enormous gulf - how did they test these hunter gathers for asthma? Did they ask their GPs? Apart from glimmers of point number 1 (noble savages) I am amazed at the vast spread there. As those people and their children start to get eaten By the modern world perhaps we could take samples ...

But overall I worry that we blame our "lifestyle" as if we forgot to unplug the mobile charger, and use it as a chance to demonise those who do not meet our cultural standards, and idolise those who would rather swap asthma for our maternity care.