A team of investigator from Japan has found that children exposed to pet cat or indoor bounder during foetal growing or early infancy appear to grow few solid food allergies , compared to other children .
Food allergic reaction have been on theriseover the last few decades , with over 32 million Americans having a life story - threatening food allergy , fit in to Food Allergy Research & Education ( FARE ) . An allergic reaction comes from an adverse resistant response when unwrap to a given food type . The allergic chemical reaction involves the immune system attacking foodproteinsthat are normally harmless , and can lead to anaphylaxis in serious vitrine .
The idea that exposure to favourite is good in prevent supersensitised disease has been suggested for some time . inquiry into the “ hygiene surmise ” – the idea that extremely clean environments actually break down to allow sufficient picture to germ needed to prime our immune organisation to fight infections – has demo the potential benefits of being exposed to dogs during early infancy , particularly in association with food allergies . However , less inquiry has been conduct on exposure to other pets .
This latest study search to deal this . Hisao Okabe , a researcher from the Fukushima Regional Center for the Japan Environment and Children ’s Study , Japan , and colleague examined information on pet exposure and food allergy for 66,215 children to see if contact lens with dissimilar animals impacted the risk of food allergies .
The entropy was drawn from the Japan Environment and Children ’s Study , an on-going nationwide , prospective nativity cohort study that admit 97,413 mothers and their youngster . consort to the data , around 22 percentage of the small fry studied had been break to darling during the fetal period of time , and mostly to indoor dogs and cats .
The information was transcribed from aesculapian criminal record during the first trimester , at delivery , and at the one - calendar month check - up . After speech , additional entropy was collect every six calendar month from caregivers , who carried out ego - report questionnaire . As such , the quality of this information was contingent on the precise reminiscence of each participant . Moreover , the squad was not able-bodied to individually assess the child participant for their reported allergies , which stand for they relied on the parent - reported doctor ’s diagnosis obtained from the questionnaires . This was because method used to prove for food allergies , particularlyoral intellectual nourishment challenge – a validated word form of allergy diagnosis – bear the risk of inducing anaphylaxis and would not be desirable for a cohort as large as the study population .
The team ’s findings suggest that exposure to indoor hotdog and cats significantly reduced the incidence of food for thought allergies . Such exposure to indoor dog-iron , they found , importantly lour the likelihood of develop allergic reaction to Milk River , eggs , and freak . vulnerability to cat importantly lowered the prospect of developing allergy to ballock , pale yellow , and soybeans .
The results did not give away any substantial difference for child living with out-of-door dog – but , out of the blue , they found that fry exposed to hamster had a much eminent risk of nut case allergic reaction . This , they believe , may be because hamsters use up nuts in copiousness . If they are correct , it suggests that nut allergens could be communicated to infants through skin exposure , a process called “ percutaneous sensitization ” , to hamsters or house rubble . “ Therefore ” , the author argued , “ family hand washing and keeping hamsters away from babies might minimize the risk of nut allergic reaction even if hamsters are kept as pets . ”
consort to the source , the study march the potential benefit of having dogs and cats as favourite when nipper are very young . These result , they claim “ reduce concerns about the exploitation of supersensitized diseases triggered by sustain dog and cat . ”
“ Reducing the relative incidence of food allergies will importantly shrink childhood mortality from anaphylaxis . ”
Although the results do not necessarily demonstrate a causal relationship , they nevertheless help head future research into the mechanism affiliate with childhood food allergies .
The study was published inPlos One .
