Our exposure to germs is natural and necessary to help build and support our immune system!
While we’d like to believe we can just knock out the “bad guys”, we almost always take out the “good guys” along with them…leading to more health challenges.
Our bodies are always trying to heal themselves…we just need to help and support that natural response.
Bottom Line: Being obsessed with cleanliness only makes you more vulnerable to infection–and as we’ve now learned, most likely to cancer as well…especially childhood cancer. Simple cleanliness with soap and water is more than enough to keep you clean. Avoid using antibacterial soaps, which harm your health and compromise your immune system. And keep that in mind when cleaning and bathing your children. Regular soap and water will do the trick. And don’t obsess about a little dirt on their hands. Remember, exposure to a little dirt only makes them stronger.
Over the years, we have explored several times why our obsession with cleanliness only makes us more vulnerable to infectious disease. And today, we’re going to learn about new research that indicates it may also make the youngest and most innocent among us more vulnerable to cancer as well. And the problem is only getting worse.
Although, childhood cancers are “statistically” rare–representing between 0.5% and 4.6%–that still works out to 15,700 kids (ages 0-19) who get cancer each year in the US.1 Worldwide, the numbers range from 50-200 million new cases each year for children. Across all ages of children and across all ethnic and socio-economic groups, cancer is the number one cause of death by disease in children. And while it is true that the overall survival rate has climbed from a mere 10 percent just fifty years ago to nearly 83 percent today,2 for many rare cancers, the survival rate is much lower and has changed little over the years.
- The average age of children diagnosed with cancer is six
- More than 40,000 children undergo treatment for cancer each year in the US
- A third of the cases under the age of 15 are from leukemia–the most common form being acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)3
- 12% of children diagnosed with ALL do not survive4
And that’s the good news. Less rosy is the fact that:
- Childhood cancers have risen across the globe by 13% over the last 20 years according to The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which published its findings in Lancet Oncology5
And even, though survival rates have climbed, there is a cost to those improved survival rates; 60% of the children who survive cancer suffer effects later in life such as infertility, heart failure, and secondary cancers6
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From Jon Barron
