wdyt of the theory that food allergies are becoming more common (besides for awareness) as a response to our immune systems being used to fighting much more bacteria, straight-up parasites, etc, and so in absence of that they body is like "ahhhh fuck blueberries"? i had a disagreement with my coworkers (sous chef and manager) abt this- they thought it was further proof that people nowadays are too "germphobic", and some of their parents' ignorance of food safety actually helped their immune systems (though they follow food safety rules at work tg). imo that's dumb, and someone being allergic to a few foods is obvs preferable to developing complications from food poisoning or other germs/viruses. but that theory on allergens might be bs
this is called Hygiene Hypothesis and it was really entrenched for a while, definitely was considered scientific when i was a kid. the layman understanding of hygiene hypothesis is bs. we know for absolute certain that pathogen infections are the cause of many many autoimmune problems.
my understanding is that it has been largely debunked and was broadly misunderstood in its heyday. a lot of pathogens just dont leave you better than they found you, a lot of them (like covid and measles) have amnesiac effects on the immune system that erase your learned resistance to previous pathogen contacts. a lot of infections like salmonella CAN be eliminated entirely by the immune system, but will cause apparently permanent damage to your GI tract in the process. HPV straight up causes cancer wherever it lands. likewise the people who experimented with stuff like helminth therapy for suppressing asthma were mostly unsuccessful
one part of hygiene hypothesis that appears to be true is that constant antibiotic exposure is a real problem. it is definitely causing superbacteria to mutate into untreatable infections. it also fucks up your gut biome which is already suspected of being at the root of a lot of chronic illness and is proving extremely difficult to treat once your good bacteria get fucked up. but the solution to this isnt to stop using antibiotics, which are vitally important treatments. something very complicated and difficult is going on with the antibiotic thing and the solution is not clear. it is completely reasonable to observe for example that people who had infections that would have killed them without antibiotic treatment continue to have to deal with chronic illness afterwards that may have been caused BY the antibiotics.
i think a lot of this is philosophical in nature. as medical consumers we want the Good Outcome, where medicine heals us and does not harm us in the process. that is probably an unrealistic expectation in many cases. doctors are hesitant to discuss this with layman patients who literally cannot understand what is being discussed. i think more of an effort can be made to educate the public about this stuff but it is like pulling teeth to get average facebook auntie to internalize that A Pill Is Neither Good Nor Bad It Just Has Effects. you get insane cognitive conclusions from the public like “fruit is bad because it has sugar” and “salt is toxic but im dehydrated which is the cause of every health complaint so i will buy salted drinks which are not toxic anymore because of marketing”
people are not stupid but they are busy and tired and trying to force them to deal with this kind of marketing fallacy burden isnt really fair so i understand why everyone just sort of picks something to be wrong about and sticks with it and it eventually kills them
