Question: Can getting sick be good for you?

Thu 2 Sep 2010 - 5:21 pm UTC

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ANSWERED on Tue 6 Nov 2007 - 3:06 pm UTC by davidsarokin

Question: Can getting sick be good for you?

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Asked by scavenger on Tue 6 Nov 2007 - 2:15 pm UTC:

I once heard that if you get a cold or some other minor illness, it can be
good for you in the long run because it ramps up your immune system and
makes you less likely to get sick from, say, the flu, or some other more
serious illness for a period of some weeks or months.

I have attempted to verify this information, but I can't seem to find any
source for it, so now I am wondering if I maybe just made it up.

Uclue Researcher Answer by Researcher davidsarokin on Tue 6 Nov 2007 - 3:06 pm UTC:

scavenger,

It's not really the getting sick part that is good for you.  But getting
exposed to a wide variety of germs, especially when young, is generally
considered an important part of building up a healthy immune system.  And
of course, with exposure, comes the (hopefully occasional, hopefully mild)
childhood illness as well. 

You can see what I mean from this medical advice column from a doctor at
Harvard:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/40753/output/print
Raising Healthy Kids

"It turns out that getting exposed to plenty of bacteria and viruses when
you are young may be a really good thing—because it helps promote the
healthy development of the immune system. In fact, research has shown that
early exposure to germs can decrease a child's risk of getting asthma and
other allergic diseases. It may even decrease their risk of certain cancers
such as Hodgkin's disease..."


As you can tell, the actual evidence is slim -- limited to a few conditions
like asthma and some allergies -- and qualified by "may".  Nevertheless,
the prevailing sentiment among pediatricians these days seems to be pretty
much as stated above, that exposure to a wide-variety of germs is a
necessary part of growing up with a well-developed immune system.


Hope that fully answers your question, but if there's anything else you
need, just let me know.

David

Uclue Researcher Comment by Researcher Roger Browne (eiffel) on Tue 6 Nov 2007 - 4:10 pm UTC:

I know a doctor who is convinced that you can only get one viral illness at
a time. In other words, if you have one kind of cold, you can't
concurrently get another.

I don't know of any science behind this belief, but it's only a slightly
weaker assertion than the subject of your question.

Regarding "getting exposed to plenty of bacteria and viruses when you are
young": I think the key here is "exposure to a wide variety of germs"
rather than to a large quantity of germs. It's likely to be hazardous to
expose a child to dog feces, for example, but it's likely to be desirable
to expose them to things like river water from a "clean" river. The
"cleaner" the river, the more likely it is to have a very wide range of
pathogens, each in a small quantity.

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