> Think about it - 'getting ill is good for you' is a counter-intuitive claim, and the only reason you are asking me for proof, is that you have gotten used to accepting this urban legend.
Sorry, "getting ill is good for you" is not what I meant to convey. Instead, what I wrote is that lowered exposure to general pathogens, also decreases general tolerance and resistance to them. This means that it's very likely detrimental to live in "clinically" clean and filtered environments, as it is also detrimental to live in isolation for too long.
The most extreme example of this are all the natives who got sick and died as the conquistadors arrived in South America. They died because they had no prior exposure, and thus no defense against, the pathogens that the Europeans unknowingly brought with them. Thus I'm fairly sure that it's trivial to prove that prolonged isolation will also lower your tolerance for common influenza pathogens. I don't know this, of course, but I'm sure an experiment where both yours and my claim were tested would be very interesting to read!
Sorry, "getting ill is good for you" is not what I meant to convey. Instead, what I wrote is that lowered exposure to general pathogens, also decreases general tolerance and resistance to them. This means that it's very likely detrimental to live in "clinically" clean and filtered environments, as it is also detrimental to live in isolation for too long.
The most extreme example of this are all the natives who got sick and died as the conquistadors arrived in South America. They died because they had no prior exposure, and thus no defense against, the pathogens that the Europeans unknowingly brought with them. Thus I'm fairly sure that it's trivial to prove that prolonged isolation will also lower your tolerance for common influenza pathogens. I don't know this, of course, but I'm sure an experiment where both yours and my claim were tested would be very interesting to read!