Friday, August 30, 2013

What's Happening to Us?

Something strange is happening to our bodies. The more diseases we banish, the better we make our defenses against bacteria and protozoa and worms, the more we suffer from a raft of new or newly prominent afflictions: autoimmune disorders, allergies, chronic fatigue, autism, crippling anxiety.

Some days I think this is just a product of longer lives, greater health, and such a reduction in real crises that we have time and energy to worry about lesser problems. Other days I worry that we are somehow poisoning ourselves in a profound and mysterious way. Why, after ten thousand years of living on bread, are we suddenly experiencing a dramatic increase in celiac disease? (It seems to be about four times more common in the U.S. than 60 years ago.) The most careful studies of autism seem to show that increased awareness and changed diagnosis can account for much of the increase, but not all of it; there really is more autism than there used to be.

Is it artificial chemicals that mimic our hormones? Not enough sickness in childhood? Are suburban gut bacteria sub-optimal?

It is very mysterious, and some days it scares me a little.

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