Reuters recently reported on a new European study that found kids who grow up on farms and have contact with cows and cow milk are less likely to have allergies and asthma than kids raised nearby but not on a farm. Reuters mentioned that previous research has shown kids raised on European farms have lower rates of asthma and allergies than other children. However, these new findings help identify what specifically may protect some farm-raised youngsters against developing asthma or allergies.
To investigate what might explain the so-called "farm effect," the research team surveyed the parents of nearly 80,000 children who grew up in rural areas of Germany, Switzerland and Austria.More than 9,600 of the kids were raised on a farm, 18,000 visited other people's farms and 52,000 never spent time on a farm.
The research team found that 11 percent of the farm-raised kids had asthma, compared to about 16 percent of the kids who visited farms but weren't raised on one.
Among the children who never spent time on a farm, 18 percent had asthma.
The researchers found that having contact with cows and straw and drinking milk that came from the farm was linked with a 21 to 26 percent reduced risk of developing asthma compared to non-exposed kids.
Kids who had contact with cows and drank their milk also had a lower chance of getting hay fever.
Sabina Illi, the lead researcher on the study from Munich University's Asthma and Allergy Research Group in Germany, said it's possible the actual cows or straw might not be responsible for the reduced risk, but it could be that microbes in their vicinity, for example, have a protective effect. PD
—From Reuters (Click here to read the full article.)
