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Prof Christopher Dye |
Napalm, bugs and the ‘clean disease’
Making the case for ‘healthy’ bacteria
DON’T panic, but as you read this article trillions of little bacteria bugs are crawling over your body.
You could try and scrub them off, but according to one of the world’s leading health experts, it would be better if you didn’t.
Professor Christopher Dye will tell a lecture hall in Holborn today (Thursday) that the “napalm attack” of anti-bacterial hand-washes might be doing more harm than good, and that we need a bit of friendly bacteria to stave off allergies and illness.
The professor believes that a totally pure and hygienic environment can be just as harmful as a “filthy mess” and that children should be exposed to infectious bacteria at an early age.
“It’s like chickenpox – better get it over and done with,” he said. “The immune system needs to be stimulated so youngsters don’t develop more serious conditions when they get older.
“We are obsessed with cleanliness and have been brought up to believe that bacteria and viruses are the enemy, but all of us are covered with bacteria anyway.”
Professor Dye, an infectious diseases expert at the World Health Organisation who divides his time between its headquarters in Geneva and Gresham College in Holborn, where he is a lecturer, added: “It’s a bit like antibiotics, which also should be used with great caution. They are like napalm in a rainforest and don’t just kill the infectious bacteria but useful ones as well.”
Prof Dye said diseases that can be caused by too much hygiene are allergies, skin conditions and autoimmune illnesses like certain forms of diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease. Clinical trials have shown that sometimes an infection is the solution.
He added: “One successful treatment for inflammatory bowel disease is actually giving patients an infection with worms. That will calm down the overactive immune response, which causes the symptoms.
“Looking back, the 1960s were a time when allergic diseases were relatively rare, but other illnesses were much more common.
“Having solved that problem, we now have an epidemic of another kind – the diseases of cleanliness.
“We have to come up with ways of putting the right amount of infection back in.”
n Professor Dye’s lecture, For a diet of worms: too much hygiene can damage your health, is part of a lunchtime series of lectures at Gresham College, Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn, EC1.
It begins at 1pm. www.gresham.ac.uk/
‘God bless all who swim here’
THE actor Robert Powell, famous for his role as the title role in Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, has “blessed” a revamped hydrotherapy pool in the Royal Free Hospital.
Mr Powell told a crowd of consultants, patients and GPs: “God bless all who swim here.”
He unveiled a plaque dedicated to the Friends of the Royal Free, which donated £64,000 to the pool.
Patient Liliana Archibald, who has used the pool since breaking her hip, said: “It is a fabulous resource. It helps in an extraordinary way and speeds up the rate of recovery.”
Patients use the pool for improving mobility, under the supervision of the trust’s physiotherapists, as exercises and stretching are more comfortably undertaken in warm water.
Common conditions helped by use of the pool are osteoarthritis, rheumatological complaints and chronic pain. |
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