Yet another study indicating that today’s kids may be
being brought up too clean.
In this study published in the June 6 edition of the
Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the health of 467 inner-city kids
from large eastern American cities was tracked for 3 years during which
researchers visited the kids’ homes and measured the type and levels of
allergens as well as the kind of bacteria present in the homes.
According to the researchers, by the age of 3, kids who’d
grown up with more mouse and cat dander and cockroach droppings (ed. comment:
yikes!) in the home had lower levels of wheezing and asthma than kids brought
up in cleaner homes.
In fact, the great the level of this “schmutz” in the
home, the lower the level of wheezing and asthma in those kids.
The same inverse relationship also held apparently for
bacteria in the home and wheezing, that is, the more bacteria ina house, the
less likely a kid was to wheeze (and to exhibit other signs of allergy).
Bottom line: drop your kid in some dirt.
And don’t pick her up for a while: she’ll love rolling in
it, and you may be doing her a lifelong medical favour besides.
