In a recent article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, [Professor Thom McDade, a biological anthropologist at Northwestern University] detailed research he conducted in the Philippines and Ecuador showing that chronic inflammation is relatively rare among people who don’t live Western-style lifestyles, and it is not inevitable with age.
“In many ways, chronic low-grade inflammation can be considered another ‘disease of affluence,’ a mismatch between our evolved biology and historically recent societal conditions that extend average life expectancies but also increase burdens of non-communicable diseases,” McDade wrote.
McDade’s idea is closely related to the widely evidenced “hygiene hypothesis,” which blames overly sanitized conditions for increasing rates of allergies and other autoimmune disorders in developed countries.
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Is there a remedy for widespread chronic inflammation? Proper diet and regular exercise can help, as they do for almost any ailment. But if McDade’s hypothesis is correct, a longer-term cure is providing the immune system with reasonable adversity early on. Parents don’t have to let their kids crawl around landfills, but a little more dogs and dirt and a little less hand sanitizer and antibacterials seem reasonable.
