Corona Isolation is terrible for our immune systems. Media all biased now so article is 2009. Yeah long who cares.
US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT HEALTH WATCH 2009
Could Being Exposed To Germs Boost Your Health?
“I’m a sound believer that we’re too clean of a society,” says Dr. Christopher Carpenter, section head of infectious diseases and international medicine at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. “Our fear of germs has pushed us too far into trying to keep everything safe and sterile. That extreme is harming us more than it’s helping us.”
“We are getting far too sterile,” adds Kiran Krishnan, a microbiologist and chief scientific officer for Microbiome Labs, based in St. Augustine, Florida. “Exposure to microbes is an essential part of being human. Most of our immune system is comprised of tissue that requires activation by the microbes we’re exposed to. Think of the immune system as an army, with tanks and missiles but no general to lead them. That’s the role friendly microbes play in your body; they’re the general.” The vast majority of microbes, 97% to 99%, are benign or beneficial, and they are the best protection to fight pathogenic microorganisms, Krishnan says.
Carpenter and Krishnan say they aren’t against good hygiene. Instead, they say that modern society has one overboard with deploying sterile tactics as to indiscriminately kill germs – including good bacteria that help maintain a strong and diverse microbiome. Everyone has a microbiome, a collection of more than 100 trillion microbes that live on and in our body, the majority in our large intestine. “The more diverse your microbiome is, the healthier you are,” Krishnan says.
There are simple ways to boost your microbe diversity, Krishnan says. "Almost everywhere we go in the environment, from parks to woods to rivers, we come into contact with microbes." They can enter our respiratory system, our digestive system or just hang on our skin.
You can also
Have closer interactions with people
“We don’t hug and kiss as much as we should,” Krishnan says. “We need closer interactions with other humans, because that exchange of microbes is important for your immune system."
Such interactions can expose you to a greater variety of microbes, boosting the diversity of your microbiome – and potentially keeping you healthier.
