From
a study done in Europe comes evidence that children's immune systems work
better when they are exposed to germs, dust and dirt at an early age. The
studies were published in the September 19, 2002 issue of the New England
Journal of Medicine, (NEJM), and in the August 28, 2002 issue of the Journal
of the American Medical Association, (JAMA).
The article in the NEJM
starts off by stating, "It is known that children of elementary-school age
who live on a farm are less likely to have asthma than their counterparts
from nonfarming households." The article in JAMA states, "Exposure to 2 or
more dogs or cats in the first year of life may reduce subsequent risk of
allergic sensitization to multiple allergens during childhood."
What both these articles are
saying is that it is a needed part of development for children to be exposed
to certain amounts of germs and other irritants in order for their immune
systems to develop properly and give adequate protection later in life. In
the study, children from parts of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland where
there were both farming and non-farming households were studied. The
investigators related the level of exposure to endotoxin (such as dust and
germs), determined by sampling dust from the mattresses where the children
slept, to the prevalence of asthma and other related conditions. The greater
the endotoxin exposure, the less likely it was that children had asthma.
These findings are completely
opposite of what most doctors were telling their patients over the past
several decades. The results of the study showed that just 3 percent of
farm children had the common type of asthma known as atopic and 4 percent
had hay fever. In non-farming households, 6 percent had atopic asthma and
almost 11 percent hay fever. This showed that exposure to farming in the
first year of life was especially protective. In the U.S., the asthma rate
rose about 74 percent between 1980 and 1996 but decreased slightly by 1999,
the most recent year available, according to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. About 10.5 million Americans have asthma, and 24.8 million
have hay fever.
These findings, combined with
similar findings from other studies, have borne a whole new type of thinking
and theory. The theory is known as the "hygiene hypothesis". It holds that
early contact with some germs arms the maturing immune system against some
allergic conditions. Some research, in fact, has suggested that children
who are exposed early on to pets or to lots of other youngsters at day care
are less likely to get colds or allergies later on. Supporters of the new
theory suspect that indoor plumbing, cleaner and more airtight homes, and
antibiotics have contributed to an explosion in allergies in industrialized
countries.