Parents should not deprive children of contact with animals. Dogs and cats do not increase and may even reduce the risk of allergies or asthma in children, according to a study published by Clinical & Experimental Allergy.
Ganesa Wegienk, an epidemiologist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, along with her colleagues, for 18 years monitored 565 children born in 1987-1989 (conducted as part of the Detroit Childhood Allergy Study). They show that allergies are just as common in children who have dogs at home as in those who grew up without pets.
The first year of a child’s development decides about the possible hypersensitivity to animal hair. It’s the window of this kind of allergy, said the specialist in an interview with MyHealthNewsDaily. As confirmation, she cited data showing that most of the observed children who had a dog or a cat at home in their first year of life were less prone to allergies.
According to the American scientist, daily contact with cats during this period reduced the risk of allergies later in life in both boys and girls. In turn, dogs at home reduced the risk of hypersensitivity in boys by half. Only girls growing up with a dog or a cat were slightly more exposed to allergies.
Prof. Tolly Epstein, an immunologist at the University of Cincinnati, said the research in Detroit was well designed. They do not answer all the questions yet, but they give many valuable discoveries – emphasizes the American specialist who did not participate in the research.
The results of the observations made so far on this subject have been contradictory. While some suggested that constant contact with animals was beneficial for children, others denied it. Prof. Epstein published his own research in 2010 which showed that children raised with dogs from an early age are less likely to suffer from allergies.
In 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study suggesting that children who had contact with one or two dogs and a cat were less prone to allergies later in life, both to dog and cat hair and to cat hair. house dust mites and ambrosia.
MyHealthNewsDaily cites research showing that contact with animals can be beneficial especially for babies born after caesarean section. Dogs reduce the risk of allergy to pet hair by a third, and cats – even by 70%. One hypothesis explains that babies who are not born naturally have less contact with the bacterial flora of the birth canal and can make up for it through contact with animals.
So is it worth keeping pets at home? Prof. Epstein says that while some studies contradict this, there is no reason to drop them because of the risk of allergies. He emphasizes that there are more and more observations showing that contact with dogs in early life can be protective. But he admits that more research is needed to clearly confirm this. (PAP)