There have been reports of YouTubers I watch getting sick after eating food in third world countries. However, these countries are also home to a large number of people who do not get sick from eating the same food. I think this suggests that the locals may have developed stronger immune systems. What do you think?
The survivors might.
they’re exposed to more bacteria growing up - it stresses their immune systems, promoting immunity. there was a study done years ago comparing the immune systems of children raised on farms (around livestock) and children raised in the city, and there was a distinct difference between the two.
Last time I was at the family doctor, I mentioned that my usual body temperature when not feeling sick clocks in well below 37°C and whether that means 37 would represent a low-grade fever in my case?
She replied that 37 is an average based on observations from like a century ago when it was common for the average person to be carrying around some minor infection, and so in 1st world countries where that’s no longer the case, temperatures have gone down.
It may be, then, that in the developing world, people tend to be at least slightly sick from all the pathogens around them but think of it as just everyday life and don’t pay it any heed? But I honestly don’t know.
There’s debate when looking at the old body temp data. The old data has higher body temps. Some say the measurements are inaccurate. Another idea is that body temps have been going down, with the hypothesis that we live in a cleaner world and yada yada yada effects from that.
Don’t tell anyone, but we third worlders convert bacteria into energy, neutralising them. That’s how we survive restaurant potato-mayo salad, and street hot dogs!*
OK, I’m joking with the above. Serious now: if there’s any quantitative difference on the immunity system between people living in poorer conditions, related to food poisoning and similar, I’d expect it to be a smaller component. Instead what I expect the most is a qualitative difference, between people living in different areas: you’re more used to the strains of bacteria around your home, than the ones elsewhere, so when you’re travelling you have a higher chance to get some stupid food poisoning.
If my reasoning is correct you should see something similar happening with travellers in general, even if they stick to places with a similar economic status as their homeland.
*or street hot dogs with potato-mayo salad. Yes, they’re a thing in my city - that’s why we call those street hot dogs something loosely translatable as “big rotten”. (I once got food poisoning from one of those. It was not fun.)
I live in a third world country. What you don’t see in those YouTube videos is how common it is for the locals to contracts sanitary-related diseases such as typhoid fever, hepatitis A, ascaris worms, diarrhea, etc. A large proportion of people I know (including myself) have contacted typhoid fever at some point in their live. Those street food resistance is earned by getting sick a lot when they’re young.
