More Evidence That Dogs Prevent Asthma

Early life contact with dogs helps to prevent asthma, concludes a new study that adds to the growing body of research that pet ownership can confer health benefits to humans.
Prior research had already found a link between reduced risk of asthma and dog ownership, so the new study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, strengthens those findings. “Earlier studies have shown that growing up on a farm reduces a child’s risk of asthma to about half,” project leader Tove Fall of Uppsala University said in a press release. “We wanted to see if this relationship also was true also for children growing up with dogs in their homes.”

The extensive study looked at more than one million children, with data collected on early life exposure to dogs and incidence of asthma. Individuals who grew up with dogs were found to have about 15 percent less asthma than children without dogs. While 15 percent is not a huge number, it still demonstrates that dogs can be beneficial to human health, and it certainly negates any concern that dog ownership might somehow induce asthma in very young children.


http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/more-evidence-that-dogs-prevent-asthma-151102.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1

it also makes sense in that if you are exposed to allergens early in life your immune system learns how to deal with them.

not really surprising, the kids of clean freaks that disinfect every thing end up with all these allergies, not enough contact when their immune system was in development