Why we should care about the best hygiene product for cleaning, washing and eating
By KEVIN DEANSTEINThe idea that washing and cleaning is more important than eating is a common refrain in America.
But a recent study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that the opposite is true.
People who said hygiene products were more important to them reported significantly more negative health outcomes than those who said they were less important to the health of the people around them.
The study, led by a team of scientists from the University of California, Irvine, examined health outcomes and diet quality in the United States over the past 30 years.
It found that people who reported hygiene products as more important, for example, were more likely to report having less abdominal pain, less depression and lower levels of chronic disease.
And while the study didn’t investigate whether these health outcomes are related to the products themselves, the authors concluded that “the hygiene hypothesis is at least partially true.”
The study also found that Americans who were more closely tied to their communities tended to report higher levels of food allergies and lower food consumption.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that a greater number of people were eating at home, less frequently were spending time outside and had lower levels on the food-allergy scale.
“Food allergy symptoms are common among people living in close social, occupational, and cultural proximity,” the study authors wrote.
“People who live in the same neighborhoods, for instance, are more likely than people living far away to have food allergies.”
In their study, the researchers looked at a number of factors, including food allergies in the home, socioeconomic status, gender, body mass index, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking and household income.
They found that those who were closest to their community reported higher levels, and they also reported lower levels.
The authors also looked at whether the health outcomes of those who reported higher hygiene products for their homes were related to their overall health.
The researchers found that, in general, people who were closer to their homes had better health outcomes, but the health indicators differed by the products people reported using for cleaning.
For example, they found that compared to people who said cleaning and washing were more of a priority for them, those who used the most hygiene products reported higher outcomes in terms of weight loss, waist circumference, blood pressure and cholesterol.
People who reported they used the least amount of hygiene products also had lower health outcomes.
For example, people using the least hygiene products had higher levels on several measures, such as higher prevalence of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
The authors concluded:”Our results suggest that the hygiene hypothesis may be at least partly true, but that the association between hygiene use and health outcomes may be largely mediated by socioeconomic and cultural factors, rather than hygiene use itself.”
Source: NBC News
By KEVIN DEANSTEINThe idea that washing and cleaning is more important than eating is a common refrain in America.But a…
