Re: Study: Siblings, pets, farms help stop allergies

[Guest guest]

Very interesting . I was raised on a farm and have no allergies, and I

very rarely even get a cold.

It¹s good to know shoveling all that manure did me some good

a

> Study: Siblings, pets, farms help stop allergies

>

> Last Updated: 2004-04-30 9:03:22 -0400 (Reuters Health)

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> LONDON (Reuters) - Having siblings, pets and living on a farm reduces

> the risk of allergic illnesses in babies but having early infections

> increases it, Danish researchers said Friday.

>

> Sterile, modern environments have been blamed for the increase in

> asthma, dermatitis and other allergic diseases over the past century

> because the immune systems of babies are simply not exposed to many

> microbes.

>

> Scientists also thought that early infections would have a protective

> effect against allergies but Stabell Benn, of the Danish

> Epidemiological Science Center in Copenhagen, found they increase the

> risk of developing allergies.

>

> " We found that having older siblings protects against allergic diseases

> but it is not by means of transferring infectious diseases because those

> diseases are actually associated with an increased risk of disease in

> the child, " Stabell Benn said in an interview.

>

> " With each infection the risk (of an allergic illness) increases. "

>

> The human immune system developed to deal with many different microbes.

> Scientists believe that when it doesn't encounter them early in life, it

> overreacts later and allergic diseases develop.

>

> Pets, living on a farm, attending day care and having older siblings

> increase a baby's exposure to microbes.

>

> Benn and her team interviewed 24,000 women during pregnancy and when

> their children were six and 18 months old. Their findings are reported

> online by the British Medical Journal.

>

> About 10 percent of the children suffered from dermatitis at 18 months

> old. The researchers found that the risk of allergic illness increased

> with each infectious disease the child suffered before six months old,

> but it decreased if the child had three or more siblings, attended day

> care or lived on a farm or with pets.

>

> SOURCE: BMJ 2004.

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> I'll tell you where to go!

>

> Mayo Clinic in Rochester

> http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

>

> s Hopkins Medicine

> http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org

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