A book called Survival of the Cleanest (2005) by Jacob I. T. Van Der Merwe is about how to avoid infection. As far as I could tell from Google Books, it says nothing about how to boost your immune function. It is all about avoiding public bathrooms, frequent handwashing, and pointing out the many ways in which we can get infected (e.g., touching shopping carts). It is heartfelt but I didn’t find it persuasive. There was almost no data about the efficacy of the book’s thousands of suggestions.
Here is something I couldn’t find in the book. A few months ago, I noticed that my eyes itched. Apparently I had some sort of infection. My eyes almost never itch and this happened to coincide with something else very rare: I hadn’t changed the pillowcases on my bed in a few weeks. So I started changing my pillowcases more often. The itching went away and hasn’t returned. My explanation: The pillowcases were acting as staging areas for the bacteria. Ordinarily my immune system would fight them off but on the pillowcases they were safe. The pillowcases shifted the balance of power.
Survival of the Cleanest does say “correctly laundering clothes kills germs and drastically reduces the risk of infection” but since this particular bit of vague advice (what’s “correctly”?) is mixed with a thousand other bits of advice, such as avoiding doorknobs, it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. For what it’s worth, when I do laundry I do a second cycle without soap, in order to get a really good rinse. I’m less interested in killing germs than I am in washing them off.
If you haven’t read it already, Seth, you may find The Coming Plague, by Laurie Garrett, interesting, as it may be the antithesis of this book. It was also required reading for the History of Infectious Diseases class I took at UC Davis in their microbiology department.
The book is essentially an account of changing patterns of infection over the past 50 years, much of which is attributed not to living in an environment with too much bacteria, but rather, living in an environment where all bacteria is killed. This is especially true in modern hospitals where the worst nasties are found, often in the form of usually benign or even helpful bacteria.
I’ll never forget the last day of the class, when our instructor said “OK folks, so if you get one thing out of this class, what should it be? The next time you drop a sandwich on the ground, wait a few seconds, and then pick it up.”
Of course, this doesn’t mean you should live in filth, but rather, that you shouldn’t live in an environment that is too sterile. Your body needs the good bacteria to keep the bad bacteria out, and trying to kill the bad bacteria off usually only results in killing off the good bacteria and making the bad, worse. Western society almost always leans in the latter direction (being overly sterile), rather than the former.
I used to have itchy eyes too, and ascribed it to past irresponsible contact lens use. At times I thought pillowcase washing was correlated. One over-the-counter claritin (which I hadn’t taken since moving out of my parent’s house) cured me of both disillusions.
You seem very fixated on bacteria. A more conventional explanation might be an allergy to dust mites and their allergens. Have you tried taking an anti-histamine? In any case, if washing your pillowcases works, there’s probably no need to take a pill.
Do you wash your pillows? Or leave them in the sun?
I’ve been itchy the last week or two, so I’ll try washing pillow slips and pillows — or maybe there’s some pollen around at this time??