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Good thing this isn't as dangerous as something like the epidemic that hit the first part of the 20th century, although this sounds like good hygiene would go a long way towards stopping it.

I'm curious if anybody has any theories on if our immune system is getting to be less and less effective over time due to various reasons and if this is another sign. We really don't seem as hardy as our ancestors.

I think a lot is that we have become truly soft and whine a lot more, but I also believe that the overuse of drugs and antibiotics has caused many of us to not develop the natural immunities by making our bodies fight off the bugs that it is capable of fighting. I know people who get antibiotics at the first sign of a sniffle. God help them if they really get sick and the drugs effectiveness is lessened from all the overuse.

You wrote: "Good thing this isn't as dangerous as something like the epidemic that hit the first part of the 20th century, although this sounds like good hygiene would go a long way towards stopping it."

More people died in the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-19 than both World Wars. +675k died in the US alone and an estimated 20 to 100 million died world-wide.

jriemer

" We really don't seem as hardy as our ancestors."

Our ancestors died at a much younger age. I read a statement in Discover Magazine that for 99.0% of the time that there have been humans, 18 years was the average life span. We are presently living in the best time ever in human history.

I'm curious if anybody has any theories on if our immune system is getting to be less and less effective over time due to various reasons and if this is another sign. We really don't seem as hardy as our ancestors.

What's known as the "hygiene hypothesis" postulates that by reducing our exposure to pathogens, we are not exercising our immune systems as much as humans years ago did, and as a result we're more likely to fall ill.

It makes sense... Avoid anti-bacterial soaps, tissues, and everythign else under the sun. Don't take antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. Let children play in the dirt and mud. etc.

I'm curious if anybody has any theories on if our immune system is getting to be less and less effective over time due to various reasons and if this is another sign. We really don't seem as hardy as our ancestors.

I know that a lot of scientists have hypothesized that the reason asthma in children is on the increase is because they're kept too sanitized as babies and their immune systems never get a proper jump start.

I'm curious if anybody has any theories on if our immune system is getting to be less and less effective over time due to various reasons and if this is another sign. We really don't seem as hardy as our ancestors.

People used to die when they got sick. Often they died before they reproduced. The incidence of lousy immune system genes in the population was kept to a minimum. Also, if people lacked the impulse control to take proper care of their health, and refrain from extreme risk-taking, they likewise often either died before reproductive age, or were socially removed from the gene pool, when their disabilities rendered them unmarriageable. Now, not only do we save people, even if they would have died several times over without high tech medical care, but there is virtually no concept in the general culture that people who are unusually prone to severe infectious illness and/or who suffer from chronic systemic illnesses, should think long and hard before reproducing. It's pretty scary to see the population get weaker and sicker, and the only response from the government and society is to advocate spending more and more money on more and more elaborate medical care (and of course, more and more taxpayer funded medical care). Of course, there's always the huge and predictable crowd screaming but "we mustn't practice EUGENICS! it's EVIL! They never seem to notice that what we're practicing now is human-directed DYSgenics.