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Want To Fight Allergies? Get a Dirty Dog

Posted by Soulskill on from the or-live-in-one-of-those-awesome-bubbles dept.

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."

13 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. I KNEW IT! by Spy+Handler · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:I KNEW IT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Who the hell hates animals? Your mother sounds like an inhuman monster.

    2. Re:I KNEW IT! by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you consider what allergic reaction is, your observation makes sense.

      Allergic reaction is your immune system looking for enemies, not finding them and attacking benign or even symbiotic cells instead. When you get a dog, alongside all the hair you get those foreign microbes and suddenly your immune system has proper enemies to fight - so it can "recalibrate" itself to combat those instead of friendlies.

    3. Re:I KNEW IT! by MrNiCeGUi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I must disagree with your rationale for wanting dogs banned in urban areas (because that's what I deduce from your wording that you want). There are already laws in place for dealing with those aspects that annoy you, respectively noise and littering.

      The fact that there are inconsiderate people out there is not, in itself, sufficient to call for an outright ban.

      I lived close to a bar, and I can tell you a thing or two about noise, street fights and vomit on the sidewalk. I still did not consider asking for a ban on all bars within urban areas. I did, however, call the police when i considered it appropriate.

    4. Re:I KNEW IT! by icebike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Really, I don't mind well behaved dogs, but anyone telling you that any laws on the books dealing with constantly barking dogs or dog crap on the sidewalks will have any effect at all is insane.

      Police will not enforce such laws. Animal control will not enforce those laws. Until the neighborhood comes to blows, nothing you say will make the slightest difference.

      There is something about dog ownership that causes deafness.

      The closer the dwellings, the smaller the dogs need to be, and the less time they should be allowed chained up outside.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    5. Re:I KNEW IT! by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 4, Funny

      There is something about dog ownership that causes deafness.

      The solution then to the barking dog problem is to get your own dog.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    6. Re:I KNEW IT! by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 5, Funny

      There are alphas like that and they should be fined, repeatedly. But you may not understand our situation.

      Our barking is to indicate a warning to our packmates or to scare off a threat (or occasionally to intimidate a squirrel). We don't bark much when our alphas are home to hear us because our alphas quickly reassure us that they don't need us to help frighten off the threat. Once our packmates acknowledge the situation, we know we have done our job and can go back to more productive activities.

      However, some things are too scary to stop barking, and one simply must keep barking until it has gone away.

  2. Makes sense by ls671 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  3. Doesn't work by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  4. Re:In other words ... by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Informative

    You'd actually be surprised to hear that mother's body prepares itself for giving birth by allocating a number of fecal bacteria to the vagina, which baby licks up on its way down the birth canal.

    So yes, nature intends for babies to "eat shit". Because it's needed to establish appropriate gut flora. To the point where nowadays doctors take vaginal swabs and put them in baby's mouth if baby is born of cesarean section and cannot get these naturally.

  5. The Finns already know it by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  6. Re:In other words ... by Bengie · · Score: 3, Informative

    The vagina does actually change to some degree and the bacterial flora changes. Turns out this change increases "good" bacteria for the infant and infants tend to ingest some of the bacteria on the way out. Other research has shown that infants actually have strong immune systems, they're just suppressed via a gene expression while they're young. Seems this gives time for bacteria to settle and make a strong biome, while giving the body time to learn to play nice with these bacteria.

  7. Re:In other words ... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Funny

    I swear, God is a fucking troll.

    No, God just loves incestuous scat child pornography. Either that, or it's evolution. You decide, based on whether you're religious or not. ;-)

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20