A July 14th article in NY Times discusses the human gut microbiome. What is interesting is the emphasis it puts on antibiotics for microbiome disturbances that can lead to chronic disease, including allergic and other atopic disease. In his new book, “Missing Microbes,” Dr. Blaser director of the Human Microbiome Project, links the declining variety within the microbiome to our increased susceptibility to serious, often chronic conditions, from allergies and celiac disease to Type 1 diabetes and obesity. He and others primarily blame antibiotics for the connection. He also emphasises that “antibiotics are not the only way the balance within us can be disrupted. Cesarean deliveries, which have soared in recent decades, encourage the growth of microbes from the mother’s skin, instead of from the birth canal, in the baby’s gut.
The article which can be found at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/we-are-our-bacteria/ illustrates how much understanding is now moving away from the narrow view expressed by the original concept of the hygiene hypothesis. There is no mention in the article of the hygiene hypothesis and “too much hygiene and cleanliness”. A short commentary on this issue in relation to the increasing important of “hygiene” in our modern world by Professor Sally Bloomfield can be found at: http://www.ifh-homehygiene.org/review/%E2%80%9Care-we-too-clean%E2%80%9D…
