Dirtyness - the key to Health

The Proceedings of the Royal Society B published a study suggesting that over-cleanliness could make babies more prone to inflammation later in life and raise the risk for stroke and heart disease.

The study found that the more pathogens a case group from the Philippines had encountered before age 2, the less cases of C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammation marker. Every episode of diarrhea lowered chance of higher CRP later by 11%, every 2 months spent in a place with animal feces cut it by 13%, and being born in the dusty, dirty dry season cut the chance by 33%.

So if you want your children to be healthy, let them get a little dirty

Cultural Diversity - Its Pathological Roots

Researchers at University of New Mexico and the University of British Columbia have argued in a series of published papers that disease determines much of our behavior.

Where diseases are common, people are less open to new experiences, more xenophobic and mean to strangers to avoid new diseases. When people avoid strangers, communication breaks down which creates different cultures and languages over the long run. For example: Sweden has few diseases and 15 languages vs. Ghana's (of similar size) many diseases and 89 languages.

We even saw this trend with the outbreak of swine flu - some started shaking hands less, wearing masks, even PDA declined - "Handshakes were skipped at college commencements. Mexicans were urged to not kiss on the cheek. Churches stopped having parishioners drink out of a common, holy cup."

It will be a long time before mainstream science accepts the research as truth, but it is food for thought.