Children Should be Eating More Dirt

I have long believed and often remarked that eating dirt is good for children's immune system.

Here is a report of a study that found that the immune systems of rats and mice living in the wild are more robust than those of their lab bound cousins.

Jun 16, 10:56 PM (ET)

By SETH BORENSTEIN

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.

"The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems aren't being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body's natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen."