Subscribe
NewsOne Featured Video
CLOSE

Are you a clean-freak? Do you spend your time cleaning, wiping, disinfecting, dousing yourself in hand sanitizer and constantly washing things down in an attempt to kill all germs and bacteria?

You may think you’re doing the right thing, but you may be making things a whole lot worse…and making yourself sicker.

Dr. Robynne Chutkan, author of Gutbliss: A 10-Day Plan to Ban Bloat, Flush Toxins, and Dump Your Digestive Baggageappeared on NewsOne Now to burst your clean-freak bubble. Chutkan, Founder of the Digestive Center for Women, suggests that while you may just want to be clean, you might be “a little too clean.”

“I spent decades in my medical training learning how to eradicate people’s germs, learning that bacteria are bad and a couple of decades later, it’s turning out that bacteria are just not bad, they’re actually good, and they’re essential for health.”

Dr. Chutkan told Roland Martin, host of TV One’s NewsOne Now, “if you look at almost any major medical illness, from allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases, cancer, obesity — it turns out that bacteria play a crucial role.

“The whole concept of the microbiome, which refers to the trillions of bacteria that live in and on our bodies – mostly in our guts – is essential for health.”

Martin highlighted the fact that the harsh household cleaning products we’re using to kill off germs and bacteria contain elements that are unknown to us, so in essence, “We don’t know what we are really using.”

Dr. Chutkan explained, “There are clearly germs that are a problem, there are viruses and bacteria that can cause infection, but the vast majority of the germs that live in our bodies and in our home are actually helpful.”

She added these germs/bacteria, “Train our immune system how to react.”

“If you’re not exposed to enough germs, your immune system tends to overreact when you get exposed to harmful ones.”

One interesting tidbit of information that Dr. Chutkan discussed revolves around the underdeveloped nations of the world. 

“If you look at a map of the world … and you look at Sub-Sahara and Southeast Asia and countries that are less developed — what we see is a striking difference in the types of different diseases we see.”

“Autoimmune diseases, cancer — these sort of “Western diseases” — non existent in the poorer countries. Now, they have other issues. They have malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS and lots of stuff going on, but a lot of these autoimmune diseases, cancer, now it’s looking like Autism, Parkinson’s, even types of heart disease, have at their root this issue of the microbiome and not enough exposure early on to these essential germs that help to train our immune system.”

Watch Roland Martin and Dr. Chutkan discuss how super-sterilized environments could be doing more harm than good and making us “a little too clean” in the video clip above.

For more information, visit www.RobynneChutkan.com

Be sure to watch “NewsOne Now” with Roland Martin, weekdays at 9 a.m. EST on TV One

Subscribe to the “NewsOne Now” Audio Podcast on iTunes

SEE ALSO: Food Fraud: Doctor Says USDA’s Food Pyramid Will Make You Fat