Old Friends

As I prepare to enjoy my long weekend before classes start for the Fall quarter (my first is on Tuesday afternoon), I've spent the morning in my comfy chair reading about dirt.

Speaking more specifically, I've been reading about microscopic bugs and a class of bacteria (Mycobacteria vaccae) that turn out to be particularly beneficial to humankind. Since I'm planning to spend most of the day at home-keeping (especially vacuuming, doing dishes, dusting, and generally tidying up after an insanely busy month), it seemed to be a fitting way to use my morning reading time.

Among the now-old magazines piled on my coffee table (old because I've almost completely stopped buying magazines, opting now for digital versions, library holdings, or quarterly or bi-annual publications) I unearthed the April 2010 issue of Body + Soul, the "Whole Living" periodical from the Martha Stewart bunch. I had picked it up because one of the teasers included mention of natural ways to lower cholesterol--guaranteed to arouse my interest. As I thumbed through it, I noticed a couple of articles on the cleanliness/antibacterial mania engendered by the H1N1 scare. Since I'm an avowed bug-(and dirt-) worshipper, I snagged a copy and it's been on the stack ever since.

The article "Talking Dirty" by Rachel Dowd considered the down-side of antibacterial cleansers and the like, quoting one researcher's observation that the challenges bacteria present to our immune system actually teach our bodies "how to deal with germs."

Now, I'm sure I've mentioned over the years that despite my mostly genetically induced heart disease, I'm ridiculously healthy. I can't tell you when I caught my last cold. I haven't had flu since I came back to the States at age 15. Some of my doctors tell me that the large doses of statins I take to lower my astronomical cholesterol may have something to do with this, and they're probably right. But I also think it has a great deal to do with where I grew up and how much dirt I put up with in my house.

It's not that I'm innately slovenly. But I doubt that many in my acquaintance allow spiders to have their way to the extent I do, or that think tidying up a stack of magazines is more important to a well-kept home than a dusted tabletop. I actually felt sorry for the spiders that reside in many window-corners in my ancient house when I turned the hoover on them a couple of weeks ago in a fit of pre-autumnal cleaning. The usefulness of the little beasties is quite apparent when one sucks up not only the webs and the fuzzy little egg caches, but also the remains of the other bugs--particularly mosquitoes and ants--from which the spiders have protected me.

My childhood in Asia seems to have exposed me to enough influenza viruses that I've emerged completely unscathed over many a seasonal outbreak. Before my last surgery my DO talked me into getting a precautionary shot, and I'll likely get one this year to satisfy my insurance company, but I probably don't need them.

At any rate, the article reminds us that slathering ourselves with antibacterial preparations (like those found in the dispensers next to the elevators at school) isn't just unnecessary (and probably ineffectual) but potentially harmful. By rubbing out all bacteria, we risk losing the ability to fight off new species or varieties.

I was rather pleased to learn that getting down and dirty may be good for the psyche. According to an April 2007 article in Science Daily, Mycobacterium vaccae seems to activate the neurons that produce serotonin, and thus produce an anti-depressant effect. Chris Lowry (author of a study that tested the effect of M. vaccae on mice, and mentioned in the Body + Soul article) wonders, as a result, "if we shouldn't all be spending more time playing in the dirt." These bugs are referred to as "Old Friends" in the bacteria-study biz, because their ubiquity has generated health benefits throughout human evolution. For more on the "old friends" relationship between microorganisms and the increase in maladies like allergies and autoimmune diseases, see "Should auld acquaintance be forgot. . . " by Holger Breithaupt in the December 2004 issue of EMBO Reports (European Molecular Biology Organization).

I do wish more people would relax about a bit of dust and the occasional muddy footprint tracked into the house, and concentrate on really effective ways of preventing outbreaks of the bad guys like salmonella--things like tossing dishcloths or sponges into the washing machine frequently, cooking one's meat properly, and wiping the cutting board down with soap and water, or a bit of lemon juice. Overusing stronger concoctions may turn around and bite us in the backside if the bad bugs learn to resist antibiotics.

The all-time best guide I've found to cultivating a good-bug friendly house can be found in Ellen Sandbeck's book, Green Barbarians. I've touted this small compendium of very good advice a couple of times, and still plan to review it for B&N and Amazon, but for now I recommend the chapters on the Barbarian Body and the Barbarian Table. Some of my favorite people wouldn't be caught dead without a bottle of hand sanitizer, and some day it may kill them. But Sandbeck's fans may well survive bacterial Armageddon, because we can live with mother Earth--in more ways than one.

Time to go play outside.

Photo credit: Cryptobiotic Soil from Arches National Park, by Daniel Mayer via Wikimedia Commons. For more on this particular dirt, see Cryptobiotic Soils: Holding the Place in Place, by Jayne Belnap of the USGS. Cryptobiotic derives from the Greek for "hidden life"--and these soils are full of it. For more interesting information on bacteria, see this week's post in The Owls' Parliament.

Barbarians At The Gates

Every now and then a book comes along that not only reaffirms my faith in humanity, but confirms the conclusions at which I've arrived over my well-over-half-a-century life on this planet.

The other day I stopped by the "new in paperpback" table at Barnes and Noble, where I spotted Ellen Sandbeck's new book, Green Barbarians. It only took a single glance at the cover for me to realize that I'd happened on a kindred spirit--and one I can't believe I hadn't heard of before, since the list of her previously published books should have come to my attention by now: Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles: Amusing and Useful Techniques for Nontoxic Housekeeping and Gardening; Eat More Dirt: Diverting and Instructive Tips for Growing and Tending an Organic Garden; Organic Housekeeping; and Green Housekeeping.

She also runs a vermiculture business at LaVerme's Worms. I felt automatic kinship, being myself the daughter of a vermiculturist. Well, sort of. According to my grandmother, my father once sold worms to fishermen in Big Pine, under the sign, "Worms, Tom." A worm composter is in my future, I can already tell.

At any rate, this newest book gives me permission, backed by scads of research and evidence, to do what I've been doing for most of my life. It also supports my contention that the environment in which I grew up has helped me to remain relatively healthy in spite of my crappy cardiac genes and all the toxic gunk the modern world seems bent on tossing my way.

Sandbeck urges us to throw away our hand sanitizer, eschew fears of rampant germs, trash our deodorants and air fresheners, and "live bravely" on our home planet: music to my ears, and fresh air to my phthalate-clogged nasal passages.

I can now go forth to the Facilities guy at school and present him with documentation that the "perfume launchers" positioned outside the elevators will, in fact, interfere with the sexual development of any children that come in contact with them, and cause all manner of breathing problems to those forced to breath in artificial cinnamon particulates, or what I've dubbed "Eau de Los Angeles Bus Terminal Bathroom." I spent several weeks during my first Texas exile riding Greyhound buses to California and back, and grew quite used to (albeit not fond of) the aroma of the ubiquitous toilet-freshener cakes. Anyway, I needed some ammunition to support my claim that these instruments not only don't smell all that great, but are actually bad for us, and now Sandbeck has successfully armed me.

There is also support for my frequent contentions that living near an open sewer in Taipei probably inoculated me against just about every bug Asia has to offer--including seasonal varieties of influenza (and probably even H1N1). We lived around chickens and pigs in various places in and around Taipei, and undoubtedly inhaled every virus then in circulation--most of which make the rounds every few years. Most Americans never come in contact with honey buckets or pigs or even chickens, and this may explain the high rates of H1N1 deaths in the United States, compared with Asia. I checked FluCount.org and found out that the U.S. has suffered a higher rate of mortality (35.28 percent of cases) than a whole slew of Asian countries combined (I counted totals from Mongolia, China, North and South Korea, and Malaysia, whose total mortality rate is around 27 percent).

Despite warnings against doing so, I also frequently went barefoot in Taiwan. I did, as warned, catch round worms at one point, and then overcame them, as did most natives. But my gut has behaved as if shielded with cast iron since, and I've rarely been visited with intestinal critters of any sort. My general good health (as compared with someone undernourished) allowed my body to overcome the critters that sought to use it as an incubator.

Green Barbarians covers a considerable amount of ground, including our cultural timidity about dirt and odor, our current preoccupation with antimicrobial hand cleaners, and even our absurd, almost religious obsession with youthful looks. Sandbeck quite successfully rubs our noses in it all, convincingly enough that I will be a great deal more careful about what I put on my lips (to avoid my tendency to look like a corpse) than about how much dirt I get on my hands.

There are many reasons why we shouldn't be so concerned about cleanliness, not the least of which is that we use enormous amounts of water to flush away body waste, clean our dishes, brush our teeth, bathe our bodies, and prettify our landscapes. A healthy respect for dirt and what it can do for us (instead of to us), would make us all better dwellers on this planet. It might also help keep us from poisoning ourselves and our surroundings in our efforts to make things all clean and shiny.

So any of my students who want to complain about my edict against fragrance in the classroom, beware: I now have even better reasons for threatening dire consequences if you marinate yourself in cologne. Also, you'll have much more money to buy books if you stop buying expensive cosmetics, body sprays, air fresheners, and toilet bowl cleaners. Invest in a good bar of Castile soap and a jug of white vinegar, get more exercise to brighten your cheeks, and we'll all be happier and healthier.

Neither Sandbeck nor I are saying that you shouldn't wash your hands to prevent the spread of disease, or that you shouldn't bathe once in a while. But too little dirt is probably even worse than too much. And we only have to look at the lovey microbes that open this post to remember that there are positive and negative results to be realized from the organisms that populate this earth. We wouldn't be green (or even here at all) were it not for cyanobacteria--but too much of it leads to algal blooms and pond death. What we really need is to keep things in balance.

Read this book; it will change your life.

Image credit: this light micrograph of Cyanobacteria from Guerrero Negro, Baja California, Mexico, was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Vojtěch Dostál. More lovely views of tiny organisms are available on NASA's light micrograph page.