Too Clean or Not Clean Enough? The Hygiene Hypothesis Myth
Two members of our team, Victoria Flanagan and Dominic Foley recently attended a Safefood networking event that took place at The Spencer Hotel, Dublin. The Safefood Knowledge Network event brought together experts in allergies, human and microbe interaction, environmental health and home hygiene to discuss the most recent research and thinking in the area and explore how to explain these messages to consumers.
It’s fair to say that over the last number of decades the term ‘hygiene hypothesis’ has led to various interpretations. They have led consumers to scratch their heads and through conflicting arguments from the media and online sources, believe that excessive cleanliness is responsible for an increased risk of developing allergies. A total of six highly qualified speakers presented evidence during the networking event, all of which agreed that the hygiene hypothesis is a misleading term and it continues to undermine attitudes to hygiene. They were also in agreement that it hampers progress in understanding how to tackle serious public health issues, especially at such a critical time where antibiotic resistance is threatening our ability to treat infectious diseases.
On this topic of allergens, Dr Audrey Dunn Galvin from University College Cork presented some hard hitting evidence on what she liked to call “the march of the allergens”. Food allergies have increased over the past decade as has the number of patients and parents seeking diagnosis. Her talk highlighted that recent scientific evidence has been accumulated to suggest that allergen-reactive T2 cells play a triggering role in the activation and/or recruitment of antibody-producing B cells, a process which is involved in the allergic inflammation. This is attributed to certain genes and the modern urban lifestyle and food choices that we now have. 10% of the European population have a food allergy. So what is being done to combat this growing statistic? Audrey brought attention to AlleREACT, which has been developed under the aegis of Integrated Approaches to Food Allergen and Allergy Risk Management (iFAAM), a European Commission-sponsored research project.
iFAAM is developing evidence-based approaches and tools for management of allergens in food. The project builds on e-Health concepts to allow full exploitation of complex data, and the sharing and linking of data through an informatics platform called ‘Allerg-e-lab’. AlleREACT directly stems from an iFAAM clinical study named AlleRiC which is being conducted in the UK and Ireland (2014-2016).
If you have a food allergy you can take part in the Irish Survey in conjunction with AlleREACT at the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AlleREACT_IRL
Surveys such as this will help improve our understanding on the contexts in which reactions to foods occur in the community across Europe. There is a growing awareness about food allergies, reflected by new legislation called the Food Information for Consumers Regulation (EU No. 1169/2011) on 14 main allergens in restaurants and food venues, and an increase in research. Nevertheless, there are still gaps in our understanding of why adverse reactions to food occur in the community. Future research is needed in dietary and allergen exposures, variability in genetic predisposition and a more in-depth understanding of the intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms that influence allergic disease.
The hygiene hypothesis was also a huge talking point at the Safefood event. There is this paradox between bad and good germs, with the media in many cases instilling fear tactics and misleading information on bacteria and hygiene, to a point where swimming in sewage is seen as a good thing! There is an urgent need to change perceptions and restore public views on microbes and hygiene. It all comes down to our endemic misunderstanding of hygiene and bacteria that live inside us, the microbial world in which we live and its relationship to health and disease. Two very important websites were shared to better educate ourselves with scientific facts. I think it is important to share them here to spread the word that hygiene is the number one public health issue and stronger promotion is needed in our schools, work places and our overall understanding.
http://www.e-bug.eu/ This is a great resource that should be incorporated into school curriculum in order to spread awareness from a young age.
