How cats and cows protect farm children from asthma.

How cats and cows protect farm children from asthma. Microbes on farms protect children from asthma and allergies, but even non-microbial molecules can have a protective effect. Immunologists have shown that a sialic acid found in farm animals is effective against inflammation of lung tissue. This study opens up a wide variety of perspectives for the prevention of allergies Many people suffer from allergies and asthma and in the past decades, these diseases have massively increased in industrialized countries. Today, about 30 percent of children have allergies -- with the exception of farm children. Among farm children, the disease is increasing less dramatically than in the case of their friends who live in the same village, but not on a farm. Microbes that occur in higher amounts and greater diversity on farms protect farm children from allergies and asthma. An environment that is not highly hygienic has a positive effect on the development of the immune system as it learns not to react to harmless materials as is the case with allergies. Not only microbes protect against asthma evidently, but also farm animals: Petting cats and cows and drinking farm milk can also prevent asthma, according to a team of researchers of the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research from the University of Zurich in cooperation with the Center for Allergy Research and Education (CK-CARE) in Davos and the Children's Hospital of Eastern Switzerland in St. Gallen: Early childhood contact with animals and the consumption of food of animal origin seems to regulate the inflammatory reactions of the immune system, more