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Want To Fight Allergies? Get a Dirty Dog
sciencehabit writes "A dog in the house is more than just good company. There's increasing evidence that exposure to dogs and livestock early in life can lessen the chances of infants later developing allergies and asthma. Now, researchers have traced this beneficial health effect to a microbe living in the gut. Their study, in mice, suggests that supplementing an infant's diet with the right mix of bacteria might help prevent allergies — even without a pet pooch."
I've had allergies all my life, dust and pollen. My mother HATED animals and we never had any pets.
Flash forward 20 years -- I get a dog, a little Chihuahua that lives inside my house. I'm sure his hair and dander is all over the place and I breathe it in every day. And.... my allergies are MUCH better now! I can actually breathe with both nostrils, which I never could do most of my life due to sinuses being swollen.
It makes sense. I have always said that keeping your kids in an aseptic environment is not helping them to build resistance for when they get out to the real world at some point.
Do you remember that South Park episode where the parents would get their kids with other sick kids for them to also get sick? Well, there is some truth to it...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenpox_(South_Park)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
In addition, a study conducted by La Ragione et al. (2004) addressed the beneficial use of L. johnsonii in the poultry industry. This study found that the administration of L. johnsonii in chickens helped control diseases caused by Escherichia coli and Clostridium perfringens. Thus, L. johnsonii has the potential to be directly used in the poultry industry as an alternative to antimicrobials
What TFA suggests is to get a "dirty dog" which pass on some "gut microbes" onto the human babies which, according to TFA, may help the human babies to fight allergies.
This scenario has several implications:
1. How the "gut microbes" being passed from that "dirty dog" to the human infant ?
Shit.
Specifically, dog shit.
Which means, the human infant somehow ingested some of the dog shit which contains the microbes that previously reside inside the dog's guts.
2. The transfer of a microbe from a species (dog) to another (human) may, or may not work.
It may even be very harmful.
If the microbes are of the "benign" kind, yes, it may benefit the human baby, as TFA has suggested.
But if the microbes are of the nasty kind, it may bring on transgenic diseases.
3. There may be a better and more hygienic way of boosting the human baby's immune responses --- Mother's milk.
Human babies who were fed the milk from their mothers are healthier and have better protection from many diseases. This is because, when the baby consume the milk from their mothers, they also consume beneficial microbes that were mixed in with the milk.
In conclusion - it is better to have your human babies to be fed mother's milk than to be fed dog shit.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I already tried this, but all that happened was that Snoop stole my weed and banged my wife. Didn't really help my allergies at all.
Monstar L
A Finnish friend of mine told me when kids there reach the age of 2, during summer holidays, they take them to the countryside and get them to play naked in dirt and mud on purpose, to build up their immune system.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
My wife was brought up on a farm, they had pet cats and dogs she had horses and now later in life she has developed severe asthma and dogs and cats effect her really badly. She has also developed bad allergies to preservatives in food and now has to carry an epipen in case of anaphylaxis.
Born and raised a NZ farmers son I have been allergic (pollen) and suffered from asthma (allergic not chronic) all my life. I grew up surrounded by dirty dogs and more sheep and cattle than most people will ever see in a whole lifetime.
Did the fact that precautions were not taken with farm chemicals back then have something to do with the allergy. I have been exposed to DDT, pesticides, feretilizers, you name it.
So OK maybe this works in a city environnement with kids that live in a modern hyper clean envirronment and who eat agro-industry cr@p er sorry food. Didn't work for this farmers son.
realkiwi
> Their study, in mice, suggests that supplementing an infant's diet with the right mix of bacteria might help prevent allergies — even without a pet pooch.
A part of me says don't take pills, go out and get a dog. There are enough of them who need homes. And then there's another part of me that says, if you're getting a dog just to prevent allergies, maybe you should take the pill instead.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.