Do you think that the younger generation is losing their natural immunity?

Question

I watch the news and hear of outbreaks of illnesses in young children. Things that were never heard of in my day of being a child. Is it possible that with all the sanitizing and germiciding parents are doing now a days is causing a weaker immune system in children. I have been very healthy my entire life, and my mom didn't do all the sanitizing and such. We didn't have purel and other sanitizers for the hands. All we had was good 'ol soap and water. With all the germs being killed before they reach the body, doesn't that causes suseptability? Since the immune system hasn't had a chance to fight it and build up antibodies against it?

Answer 1

To some degree, I believe that you are correct. The increase in immunization and avoidance of pathogens has decreased our natural immunity, to a degree. Immunizations serve to strengthen and enhance our immune systems, providing us with a passive protection against many deadly and/or debillating diseases. In doing so, however, we no longer have the element of natural selection culling the more susceptable individuals from our population...since the majority of us are immunized (at least in developed countries) we provide everyone with protection through herd immunity. When this fails, however, those who are susceptable are very vulnerable.

The avoidance of pathogens and emphasis on personal hygiene has been held as one of the most important aspects of public health. Drinking purified water, eating well cooked food, bathing regularly, and frequent hand washing have done more to keep our people living longer and healthier than probably any other advancement. At the same time, these practices prevent us from becoming frequently exposed to pathogens...exposure that would perhaps allow us to develop an immunity to these pathogens. Recent studies have suggested that our hyper-cleanilness may be in part to blame for the rise in asthma in recent years, since children are not exposed to dirt and pathogens when they are young their bodies may hyper react when they are latter exposed, resulting in asthma. This has not been conclusively proven. A better example may be found by just about any American or European who travels to Mexico and attempts to drink the same water that the locals are drinking.

So yes, our current practices may well be weakening our immune systems to some degree. However, our overall health has been greatly improved. Read a good history book and look at what happened to unimmunized populations during just about any outbreak. People complain about getting flu shots today, only 90 years ago in Philadelphia Catholic priests were driving horse carts through the streets screaming "Bring out your dead" during a influenza pandemic. As an aside, if everyone 90 years ago had washed their hands regularly, the influenza outbreak of that time may well have been contained. Parents who are paranoid to the point of near insanity today refuse to allow their children to be immunized because they read in the National Enquirer or such that vaccinations may cause autism. They refuse to accept that study after study has failed to find any link between vaccinations and autism, and that unvaccinated children are autistic at the same rates as vaccinated children. Such parents would do well to look at pictures of children dying of measles, tetanus, and hepatitis, children who would have been saved by immunizations.

Our quality of life today is better than at any other time in history. Overall, our people are living longer, healthier lives than ever before, and this is mostly due to our public health initiatives. In the past, death and disease were constant companions. It is not uncommon to read reports of children in centuries gone by playing kick ball with a skull. Today, exotic disease is rare and death is becoming seeming more the exception than the rule. As a result, an outbreak of something like the avian flu grabs world headlines. Only a few hundred people have died of this disease, while the more common flu strains kill tens of thousands in the U.S. every year. To report that 3 young child died of avian flu in Turkey last week will sale more papers than to report that 30 grandmas and 15 grandpas passed away of the flu here in this city over the past month.

Answer 2

We have more people living on the earth today than at any other time in history because of these sanitizing and other health measures we take to stay healthy?
So now people with weaker immune systems stand a better chance of for a full recovery verse those who lived even 20 years ago.
Some of us have better genes than others.

Answer 3

From what I've read/heard recently, some of the problems are caused by parents not having their children immunized. There's a perception by some that certain diseases are no long around, so they don't immunize their child. Needless to say, that's not the right thing to do. Just because a disease is no longer common in the USA it doesn't mean that it's not around. All it takes is someone flying back into the country from a country where that disease is still active.

Answer 4

Yes, new parents these days are scared to let other people around their babies, so the kids never get a chance to build their immune system, Not too many women breast feed anymore either, so they don't pass on their antibodies through the milk.

A girl I know wouldn't let anyone touch her baby unless they washed their hands first, and if you were sick, you weren't allowed in the house. Now she wonders why her daughter is sick every other week.

Answer 5

I have heard this theory presented before. It's possible but it rubs me the wrong way. I'm guessing we are near the same age group.

When I was a kid getting sick meant measles, mumps, chicken pox, at worst I had scarlet fever. Or some of the older kids had polio.

Personally I think kids today are exposed to more germs and pollutants than we could dream of.

The Industrial Revolution began the air pollution.
How many kids in your classes had albuterol inhalers?
In mine there was one.
Today the majority of kids carry inhalers.

The acid rain soaks into the ground; plants are treated with pesticides, animals eat the plants, we eat the plants and some of us eat the animals. The sun's rays poison our skin.
Today kids are getting adult illnesses ie. cancers, digestive problems, food allergies Kids should not be having Chron's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and brittle bones!

True these are mostly illnesses related to the immune system, but I do not blame them on over-sanitation; I blame them on exposure to all of the above and over use of antibiotics.

Answer 6

i don't think of that's something knew. I propose whilst Jesus replaced into held on the bypass, a lot of folk did not have faith in him which incorporate youthful and older human beings. faith has continuously had united statesand downs.

Answer 7

Yes.