Letter to BS: Autoimmune disease affects millions of people, say experts

Like so much of modern life, there seems to be a tipping point when clean is 'too clean'

This refers to “Environment is cleaner, your immune system has never been prepared” (March 17). Experts agree autoimmune disease affects millions of people with a cost of more than $100 billion. Improvements in hygiene and sanitation though welcome have inadvertently given to an alarming increase to human-made auto-immune diseases. It is suspected that this is partly attributable to our lack of exposure to micro-organisms that we once had. Potentially pathogenic and benign micro-organisms associated with dirt once covered all aspects of our earlier lifestyle and ensured an alert immune system. Our immune system needs a level of stimulation