I heard something interesting today on CNN. After a study they seem to have found that babies exposed to 2 or more pets have far less chance of developing allergies to those pets later in life. It is not that the pets leave hair, skin, and mites around but rather their turds and urine where they go in the house that allows the retarding of allergies. It seems that I remember it being something like 1/6 the chance with them being exposed to pets in their early years as opposed to 1/3 developing allergies without being exposed. It also seems that super clean homes do them no favors either. By not allowing them to be exposed to various germs and bacteria early in life they are set up to face reactions to them later in life. Apparently, some dirtiness is actually better for the kids. Those babies who were in some form of childcare with other babies also had less tendency to develop sickness later on in their school years.
of course - immune system but in places that hasn't been thought of before ---------------------------------------------------------------------- also that anti-bacterial soap humans don't realise that by killing all bacteria on their skin's surface they elimenate a thin layer of bacterial/biological protection
I've read some reports similar to this. One was in the (exceptional) book 'Genome' by Matt Ridely that children raised on households where the parents were zealous about incessantly keeping them clean were more likely to have asthma than children not raised in such environments. The finding in the report you mentioned sounds similar, the basic thinking is that immune systems need to be challenged during development in order to function normally. It makes a lot of sense in evolutionary terms, only in the last few hundred years have (many) humans had the technology to kill off bacteria at will. We evolved in much filthier environs than we live in now, and our immune systems are evolved for that kind of environment. Avatar: Also, anti-bacterial soap is just one more way of breeding super-bacteria, capable of resisting the anti-bacterial agents in these products. Just like the over-use, and mis-use of antibiotic drugs has lead to resistant bacteria.
test subject 1. Xten raised from day 1 with a cat in the house. I have always had a pet cat, even now. I love my cat, but he still makes me sneeze and my eyes itch and water if i pet him too much. So I guess this might have an effect for some but I guess I just missed out. *blows his nose*
