Too much hygiene may lead to auto-immune diseases: Expert
LUCKNOW: Too much emphasis on hygiene and staying away from the soil in multistorey buildings is one of the causes of rising autoimmune diseases (IBD), say doctors of Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences.
Keeping away from soil may save you from bacterial infections but it can lower immunity and cause auto-immune diseases. Earlier, western countries faced such problems but Indians were safe from auto-immune diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). But with rise in urbanization, Indians are also falling prey to such diseases, say experts.
Professor UC Ghoshal, gastro expert of the PGI told HT, “Inflammatory bowel disease ( IBD) is a name for a group of disorders which cause inflammation of the intestine. IBD includes two disorders, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (UC). UC affects the inner lining of the large intestine (colon) while Crohn’s Disease can affect any part of the digestive tract from the mouth to the anus. Poor immunity is one of the major causes of this disease.”
He said, “It is known to us that the intestinal flora consist of numerous bacteria which are present in the intestine since birth. These bacteria are inherited from mother by every individual.
They never get killed by our immune system as they are friendly but as soon as unknown bacteria attack body, the immune system responds. However, experts believe that the cause of IBD may be abnormal activity of a person’s immune system (body’s natural defense mechanism system). Normally, the immune system protects the body from infections caused by bacteria or viruses and once the infection has been cleared, the immune system shuts off. But in people with IBD, the immune system overreacts to normal bacteria and once it starts working, it fails to ‘shut off’, causing inflammation, which damages the digestive tract. Other factors include genes, as IBD runs in families. Stress and eating certain foods can also contribute to making symptoms worse.”
He said now people in western countries were observing mud day so that they could remain in touch with the friendly bacteria present in the soil.
He said auto-immune disease was on the rise because people in multistorey apartments rarely touched soil. They drink mineral water and never came in contact with bacteria of the soil. As a result, immunity of such people was low, specially if they were hyper about hygiene. In India, cases of inflammatory bowel diseases were on rise as 6 out of one lakh people were had this disease. This was at par with the west where 5 to 15 out of one lakh people suffered from such disease. Surprisingly, there were no cases of such diseases till 1990 but they increased after rapid urbanization, said prof Ghoshal.