Your body is a complex ecosystem made up of more than 100 trillion microbes that must be properly balanced and cared for you to achieve optimal health.

This system of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protozoa living on your skin and in your mouth, nose, throat, lungs, gut, and urogenital tract is referred to as the “human microbiome.”

It varies from person to person based on factors such as diet, health history, geographic location, and even ancestry. When your microbiome falls out of balance, you can become ill.

Those organisms perform a multitude of functions in key biological systems, from supplying critical vitamins to fighting pathogens, modulating weight, and metabolism.

This army of organisms also makes up 70 percent of your immune system, “talking” directly to your body’s natural killer T-cells so that they can tell apart “friendly” microbes from dangerous invaders.

Meanwhile, it’s becoming common knowledge that growing up in an overly clean environment – complete with antibacterial soap and hand sanitizers – might backfire because it keeps you from getting normal and healthy microbe exposure.

The hygiene hypothesis suggests that exposure to bacteria and other microbes early in life is beneficial, as it stimulates your immune system, which then develops tolerance and reduces your risk of allergies.

The same can be said about food allergies, researchers claim, noting that eating small amounts of foods such as peanuts, which is a common food allergen, early on in life may “train” your child’s immune system to avoid allergy in the first place.

Dishwasher Use Linked to Allergies

Researchers from Sweden's University of Gothenburg recently added another piece of research in favor of the hygiene hypothesis, concerning a device that’s found in about 75 percent of US homes:¹ the dishwasher.

If you have a dishwasher in your home, you probably consider yourself lucky. But there may be reason to wash your dishes by hand instead. Because they use very hot water (water typically too hot for human touch), dishwashers kill far more germs, and leave your dishes cleaner, than ordinary hand washing.²

But this purported benefit might also be their downfall. In a study of more than 1,000 Swedish children, those with increased microbial exposure were less likely to develop allergies… and this included potential exposure through hand-washed dishes.³

In households where dishes were always washed by hand, rates of allergies in the children were half those from households that used dishwashers. The children using hand-washed dishes were less likely to develop eczema, asthma, and hay fever.

According to the researchers:

“We speculate that a less-efficient dishwashing method may induce tolerance via increased microbial exposure.”