Excessive washing causes more severe allergies?

Excessive washing with harsh soaps and abrasive skin care products is being blamed for a rise in allergic diseases such as eczema. The "hygiene hypothesis" pins the rise on people being too clean, resulting in the immune system becoming too sensitive to infection. But University College London's Institute of Child Health believe there could be a more direct cause. They believe over-use of harsh products strips away a protective layer of skin. This, they write in the journal Trends in Immunology, could make people more vulnerable to an allergic disease. Rates of eczema and other allergic diseases are rising across the developed world. Researcher Professor Robin Callard said many strong soaps, exfoliant beauty products and biological washing powders were all potent enough to strip away the skin's protective outer layer.

Professor Callard said: "Despite its popularity over the past 20 years there is very little supporting evidence for the "hygiene hypothesis". "In contrast, there is mounting evidence from both studies of rare genetic conditions and our lab work to support an important role for abnormalities in the outer protective layer of the skin in allowing allergic sensitization." Professor John Harper, who also worked on the study, said people had nothing to fear from normal standards of hygiene - the potential problem was over-zealous use of harsh cleaning products. He said: "Good standards of hygiene are clearly important to prevent spreading of unpleasant diseases. "But if this proposed mechanism does turn out to be true, we may be able to reduce the incidence of these diseases by developing new treatments which specifically target the outer protective layer of the skin."

Steve - there may be some validity to this study, but there are myriad reasons why allergies are on the rise. We need to look at our total lifestyles and pinpoint the areas that may be contributing to the inflammation, such as, diet, toxic load, living situation, stress level, and hygiene habits.