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For once, I agree with KvH :-)
Examples:
During the Viet Nam war, an experiment was carried out on US troops. The personnel of a non-combat support unit were divided into two. One half showered religiously at least once per day. The other half showered twice per week over 6 months. After the first month, statistical studies were made of the incidence of any kind of illness, even self-treated minor ones. The "dirty" group were very significantly healthier than the clean group. Even more peculiar, the perceived body odour before a shower of the "dirty" group dropped very significantly during the experiment, suggesting that over-washing may actually cause BO, to the extent that the "clean" group's BO was worse than the "dirty" group's.
Not a scientific study, but an anecdotal observation. As most of you know, I've travelled widely to many peculiar places on professional international missions in groups of 3 to 30. One of the hazards of such travel is Delhi belly, Montezuma's Revenge or, more simply, the squits. What I have observed is that many of the US residents in our groups were those who took the most precautions not to risk eating/drinking anything that could possibly convey the slightest pathogen, some almost to the extent of paranoia, yet these same people were the worst sufferers of the squits whereas others who ate/drank exactly the same (or worse) did not, as a rule, suffer. The most interesting case was an Indian PhD who spent the first 30 years of his life in India and 12 years in USA who, each time we went to India, contracted the squits; IOW, he had not developed a pathogen immunity that could survive the hygienic conditions of life in the USA. It probably requires a more-or-less constant exposure to be immune.
Examples:
During the Viet Nam war, an experiment was carried out on US troops. The personnel of a non-combat support unit were divided into two. One half showered religiously at least once per day. The other half showered twice per week over 6 months. After the first month, statistical studies were made of the incidence of any kind of illness, even self-treated minor ones. The "dirty" group were very significantly healthier than the clean group. Even more peculiar, the perceived body odour before a shower of the "dirty" group dropped very significantly during the experiment, suggesting that over-washing may actually cause BO, to the extent that the "clean" group's BO was worse than the "dirty" group's.
Not a scientific study, but an anecdotal observation. As most of you know, I've travelled widely to many peculiar places on professional international missions in groups of 3 to 30. One of the hazards of such travel is Delhi belly, Montezuma's Revenge or, more simply, the squits. What I have observed is that many of the US residents in our groups were those who took the most precautions not to risk eating/drinking anything that could possibly convey the slightest pathogen, some almost to the extent of paranoia, yet these same people were the worst sufferers of the squits whereas others who ate/drank exactly the same (or worse) did not, as a rule, suffer. The most interesting case was an Indian PhD who spent the first 30 years of his life in India and 12 years in USA who, each time we went to India, contracted the squits; IOW, he had not developed a pathogen immunity that could survive the hygienic conditions of life in the USA. It probably requires a more-or-less constant exposure to be immune.
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