Seeker Blog

I wrote a bit on the good/bad-germ hypothesis a month ago. Here’s another source of research on possible changes in the immune system of humans raised in ultra-clean environments:

Bengt Björkstén has a gold mine of feces in his freezer. Over the past 11 years, the Swedish pediatrician and immunologist has been carefully collecting fecal samples from a cohort of children living in Sweden and neighboring Estonia. The samples harbor a wealth of information on the children’s microbial inhabitants, which have been shown to play a vital role in immune function. Björkstén hopes that new technologies that allow scientists to analyze microbes more precisely than ever before will reveal why allergy rates in Sweden and other wealthy nations, including the United States, have risen dramatically over the past 50 years, while rates in historically poorer nations, such as Estonia, have not.

His findings could provide a new twist on the hygiene hypothesis, which suggests that rising allergy rates are linked to our more antiseptic, modern lifestyle. If scientists can find the elusive x factor that either protects against allergies or increases risk for them, they may be able to recreate it, perhaps by dosing mothers or babies with healthy bacteria, known as probiotics. “We’re on the verge of a revolution in understanding the human microbiome,” says Björkstén. “The key to understanding these diseases may be in the gut, rather than in the environment.”

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