FARMERS and their families are less likely to develop allergies and asthma than others, with early-life exposure to pets the next best thing for those whose childhoods were not spent near cattle and tractors.
That’s according to a Sweden-based team of scientists, who have pieced together more evidence to back up something they say is “well established” – that growing up on a farm means “lower risk of developing allergy.”
The investigation, which was based on faecal analysis and included tests for asthma, conjunctivitis, eczema and food allergies, was published in the medical journal PLOS One and found that week-old babies born to farming parents already show signs of being less likely to succumb than others.
The University of Gothenburg-led team said the difference “may be linked to gut microbiota development during infancy” – with exposure to microbes on farms giving children “more mature” gut microbiota compared to kids from the town a few miles away.
Children who grow up with pets around the house also are at less risk of developing allergies – “possibly for similar reasons,” the team said.
In 2017, research published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology pointed to an association between “farm exposure in early childhood” and reduced risk of respiratory disease.
In 2023, work by University College Cork and APC Microbiome Ireland found that children who spent a lot of time outdoors and in contact with animals had better immune systems than those who grew up in urban areas. – dpa
