Good Grime

I like this story in today's Atlanta paper, because it reminded me of when we were kids playing in the yard. My Dad would say it was good for us to eat a little dirt. We did. I had an older cousin who lived next door. He and his wife had a little girl who looked like she was run through a car wash at least once a day. They wouldn't let a fleck of dirt soil her appearance. She was sick all the time. We five, on the other hand, were 'grimy" and rarely sick. Must be something to this story.

Atlanta Journal Constitution
NATION IN BRIEF From News ServicesSaturday, June 17, 2006
A little grime may be good, scientists say

Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick. The new studies, one of which was published Friday in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, add weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. Study co-author Dr. William Parker, a Duke University professor of experimental surgery, said what happened in the lab rats is what probably occurs in humans: Their immune systems have it so cushy they overreact to the smallest of problems