Exposure to Wide Variety of Microbes May Reduce Allergies

sciencehabit writes "A new study reveals that people who grow up in more rural environments are less likely to develop allergies. The reason may be that environments rich with species harbor more friendly microbes, which colonize our bodies and protect against inflammatory disorders." From the article: "To test whether or not biodiversity does indeed create a shield against such conditions, the team investigated the microbial diversity of 118 teenagers. The study participants, who had lived in the same houses their whole lives, were chosen at random from a 100-by-150-kilometer block in eastern Finland. Some kids lived on rural, isolated farms, while others lived in larger towns. ... surveyed all of the types of plants growing around the adolescents' homes. The participants were part of a separate long-term allergy study, so the researchers took advantage of that data to investigate the connection between biodiversity and allergies. ... Whether there is just something special about Finland's native plants or whether this finding can be applied around the world is still an open question, Hanski says. 'Many research groups worldwide could easily attain these data from their study populations, and then we'd know how general these results might be.'"

Comments

Fight allergies by *exposing* yourself

[Hamsterdan]

That's how I cured my cat allergies. I couldn't even stand to see a picture of one. So I got one... It was hell for a couple of weeks. Now, 16 years later, no reaction whatsoever unless she scratches or bites me. Even other cats have almost no effect on me now. If you always sterilize, remove germs and ultra-clean everything, of course your body won't know what to fight.

My anecdote

[Nidi62]

For the record I'm still pretty young, only 25. But I grew up playing in the dirt, playing sports (especially football and baseball). I usually got dirty every day. If I got a cut, I rarely used a bandaid, even more rarely used something like neosporin. My house didn't use a lot of disinfectants, and my sister was the same way I was. I still don't really wash out or clean out cuts and they never get infected (and with where I work, the amount of dirt, oil, and other things I get on me is crazy), I rarely get sick, and I have no allergies. My sister rarely gets sick, and the only allergy she has is to pollen (which is a really common allergy here in Georgia). I firmly believe it was my lifestyle growing up that kept my immune system so strong.

And yes, I am aware that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Re:Explains

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Given that infant mortality has gone from several a generation to several generations per occurance in families, are you really sure that we don't see a substantial change in the population? While the gene pool is unlikely to change substantially in a few generations, the number of people who are living with genetic defects in the western world has increased immensely. Start with the extreme examples. People born with Down's syndrome didn't survive very long 100 years ago. People with cystic fibrosis didn't generally survive very long 100 years ago. Babies with GI troubles "failed to thrive" and died. Just because no major "evolution" has occured doesn't mean that the population is ithe same as a century ago.