According to a Swedish research, young children who are raised with a pet dog in the households or farm animals are less likely to develop asthma.
The research suggest exposure to dog dander in infancy might actually be beneficial. Children who grew up living with a dog in their home were less likely to have asthma at the age of 7 than children without dogs. As for those who live on a farm with many animals seemed to have more protection, cutting the risk of asthma by about 50%.
(Animals groom themselves by licking. Skin cells covered in saliva are the animal dander.)
Professor Tove Fall (Lead scientist) of Uppsala University in Sweden, said: "Our results confirmed the farming effect and we also saw that children who grew up with dogs had about 15% less asthma than children without dogs."
She said this fits with the hygiene hypothesis which favors exposure to dust and dirt to improve our tolerance of common allergens. The findings should also provide some reassurance for parents.
"My take-home message from this study is that parents at this point do not need to worry about keeping their dog or getting a puppy when expecting a baby for fear of asthmatic disease," She added. "I do want to be clear that this recommendation is valid only for families without a child already having allergies. If they already have a furred-animal-allergic child, we do not recommend them to get a furred pet."
This is a really good news since a lot of family with pets and expecting a baby are worried about having a pet at home with a new born baby.
More about this story
http://www.livescience.com/52665-childrens-asthma-risk-dog-animals.html
No comments:
Post a Comment