What The Papers Say: The 'hygiene hypothesis' for allergic disease is a misnomer

“Biome depletion” is a better term for how immune function is undermined in industrialized societies, writes William Parker, 25 years after The BMJ published David Strachan’s seminal hypothesis

A publication by David Strachan in The BMJ in 1989 described the idea that a loss of species diversity from the ecosystem of the human body could lead to allergic disease. Subsequent studies have focused on exactly which species of symbionts might be important, and they have expanded the model beyond allergy to include autoimmune diseases and cognitive disorders related to inflammation. This view, now confirmed by a vast body of literature as a cornerstone of immunology, is likely to affect the discipline of cancer study in the future.

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