A Little Dirt Never Hurt Anyone !

Most of us have heard those words many times during our lifetime, from Mom, Dad, Grandparents, etc. Those words could be more true than we ever thought. Routine exposure to harmless microorganisms in the environment—soil bacteria, for instance, trains our immune systems to ignore benign molecules like pollen or the dandruff on a neighbor’s dog.

A vaccine of M. Vaccae has been used to treat such illnesses as allergic asthma, cancer, psoriasis, dermatitis, eczema, tuberculosis and recently, depression. The effect on depression was discovered when lung cancer patients who were injected with killed M. vaccae reported better quality of life and less nausea and pain.

Mycobacterium vaccae is a nonpathogenic species of the Mycobacteriaceae family of bacteria that lives naturally in soil.

Everyone can get a dose of M. vaccae just by taking a walk in the great outdoors or rooting around in the garden. Simply inhaling M. vaccae can help elicit a jolly state of mind. Mycobacteria can be ingested through water sources or through eating plants, such as lettuce, carrots, etc. that you pick from the garden.

So, it is true, a little dirt never hurt anyone. In fact, some researchers have proposed that the sharp rise in asthma and allergy cases over the past century stems, unexpectedly, from living too clean.