Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
August 2010
Pigpen, one of Charles Schultz's Peanuts characters, appeared surrounded by flying dirt particles but in avoiding bathing he might have been dodging some nasty diseases and asthma.
During the Stone Age humans didn't bathe at all. Early in the twentieth century it was acceptable to bathe only once a week. Some of us still recall the Saturday night bath. In earlier times, except for the ancient Greeks and Romans, people seldom bathed. By now you must be wondering if everyone stank and if they suffered from infections and louse infestations. (They did.). Modern plumbing has not only made life more pleasant but it has dramatically reduced the infectious disease burden. Only a century ago, diarrhea was a major killer of children and the absence of plumbing was the main reason.
It's possible to be too well-protected against germs. For example, in the days before immunization, polio did occur among the poorest classes but the children of the wealthy suffered unexpectedly high attack rates. In neighborhoods where sanitation was poor, infection by intestinal viruses known as enteroviruses was common. Some of these were related to the poliovirus but rarely caused disease. Children who were infected by these benign enteroviruses developed cross-reacting antibodies that protected them from the much more dangerous strains of polio. Among more affluent, clean-living families the children had less opportunity for exposure to the benign but protective enteroviruses. When they did encounter the poliovirus they suffered paralytic disease. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the best known of such wealthy victims.
Some bacterial agents of meningitis have cousins such as E. coli that are almost universally present in the human intestinal tract. They are mostly benign and only occasionally cause serious illness, outbreaks of which have made headlines. Persons who develop antibodies to certain strains of these bacteria may be protected against agents that cause invasion of the brain and the bloodstream among young individuals such as college students and military personnel.
Our super-clean society may offer a clue to the sharp rise in childhood asthma. What scientists refer to as the Hygiene Hypothesis or the Pigpen Effect is the observation that early exposure to insect dust or animals has a protective effect in some children. For others, such exposure increases the risk. Intestinal worms may actually shield us from maladies such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis.
Until scientists have more answers, don't skip your daily bath or shower.
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.