Asthma: Slumbering on animal fur protects

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MunichA little dirt doesn't harm children. On the contrary: A piece of farm in the children's room even seems to protect against allergy diseases such as asthma.

At least that is what the results of a recent study suggest: Dr. Christina Tischer and her colleagues at the Helmholtz Zentrum München observed more than 2,400 children over a period of ten years. All of them were born in 1998; the researchers let around half (55 percent) sleep on a sheepskin in the first three months of life.

Risk drops by 79 percent

What the scientists found out confirms earlier hypotheses in allergy and asthma research: The fur babies later suffered significantly less often from the respiratory disease. At the age of six, the risk of getting sick was 79 percent lower than that of children who had not slept on animal skin. And even at the age of ten, the former fur babies still suffered 41 percent less often from asthma.

Protection by microorganisms

Many large studies in recent years suggest that people who are more exposed to microorganisms in their childhood and adolescence are less likely to develop asthma and allergies later. A European study with 10,000 participants showed: Those who live on a farm as a child have a 60 percent lower risk of developing an allergy than city children. Tischer suspects the same connection in her sheepskin study: "Probably the bacteria on the animal skin and fur protect the children from asthma."

Most common chronic disease in children

Asthma is a chronic inflammation of the bronchi that can cramp like a spasm. The symptoms are mostly triggered by allergens such as bee pollen, fungal spores or the finest protein particles from the fur of animals. Patients experience coughing, shortness of breath and shortness of breath. In Germany around five percent of adults and up to ten percent of children are affected by asthma. In children, bronchial asthma is the most common chronic disease - both in Germany and around the world. (away)

Source: Abstract “Sleeping on animal fur in the first three months of life reduces the risk of asthma in later childhood”, Session: Risk factors for respiratory disease, Congress of the European Society, Munich, September 2014.

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