I personally think the hygiene angle confuses the peice of info that was new to me, and the info I was trying to share. This point of interest being the way the immune system (in particular the T-cells) is generated.
... Often people with autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis have low T cell numbers.
If the body detects low levels of T cells, it resorts to homeostatic expansion, a mechanism that has never been associated with autoimmunity before. Under homeostatic expansion, growth signals stimulate the existing T cells in the body to divide and multiply....
I personally find it interesting that their theory is that if the T-cells are generated by cell division (homeostatic expansion), instead of the "normal" method (whatever that is) there will be autoimmunity.
Here is a PubMed reference that sticks to the point, that was new to me.
During illness and stress, the immune system can suffer a considerable loss of T cells (lymphopenia). The remaining T cells undergo vigorous compensatory expansion, known as homeostatic proliferation, to reconstitute the immune system. Interestingly, human diseases of autoimmune etiology often present with immune deficiencies such as lymphopenia.
If these guys were 100% correct, treatments could be based around drugs that stopped homeostatic growth, and pushed the normal method. if these guys were only 30% correct, they could match our current treatments. And thats what caught my eye.