Are Cleaning Companies Making Us Sick?

I get allergies every time the season changes. I always just thought that was normal, that's just how I am.

But there's this idea called the hygiene hypothesis that makes me question that. The theory is that our immune systems need exposure to microbes to learn how to behave — and if you grow up in an overly clean environment, it never calibrates properly. So instead of attacking real threats, it starts overreacting to totally harmless things. Like pollen. Or my particular nemesis, whatever happens in autumn.

Allergy and autoimmune disease rates have gone up a lot in industrialized countries over the last 50 years. Kids who grow up on farms get fewer allergies. More microbial exposure early on seems to actually help.

What bothers me is that there's an entire industry selling you the idea that you need to eliminate 99.9% of bacteria from every surface in your home. And maybe — maybe — that's making things worse. There's no profit in telling people to worry less about germs.

I'm not saying stop washing your hands. But I do think it's worth questioning who benefits when we're scared of our own microbiome.