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Anybody else have wicked allergies this time of year? Maybe you need to camp more often... or at least take your kids more.
From wired.com
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/allergies-immune-system-outdoors/
Now there’s another reason to get back to nature. A new study reveals that people who grow up in more rural environments are less likely to develop allergies. The reason may be that environments rich with species harbor more friendly microbes, which colonize our bodies and protect against inflammatory disorders.
“We are proposing that contact of people, particularly children, with the natural environment and biodiversity could be really important for the development of the immune system,” says Ilkka Hanski, an ecologist at the University of Helsinki and lead author of the study.
Hanski and his colleagues investigated the biodiversity hypothesis, or the assertion that the global decline in biodiversity and decreasing contact with it is linked to the escalating prevalence of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. To test whether or not biodiversity does indeed create a shield against such conditions, the team investigated the microbial diversity of 118 teenagers. The study participants, who had lived in the same houses their whole lives, were chosen at random from a 100-by-150-kilometer block in eastern Finland. Some kids lived on rural, isolated farms, while others lived in larger towns. The researchers controlled for factors such as whether family members smoked, if pets lived in the house, and what type of allergens the subjects were sensitive to ensure that correlation with the bacteria’s health benefits wasn’t driven by a single allergen.
Keep reading on wired.com
From wired.com
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/allergies-immune-system-outdoors/
Now there’s another reason to get back to nature. A new study reveals that people who grow up in more rural environments are less likely to develop allergies. The reason may be that environments rich with species harbor more friendly microbes, which colonize our bodies and protect against inflammatory disorders.
“We are proposing that contact of people, particularly children, with the natural environment and biodiversity could be really important for the development of the immune system,” says Ilkka Hanski, an ecologist at the University of Helsinki and lead author of the study.
Hanski and his colleagues investigated the biodiversity hypothesis, or the assertion that the global decline in biodiversity and decreasing contact with it is linked to the escalating prevalence of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. To test whether or not biodiversity does indeed create a shield against such conditions, the team investigated the microbial diversity of 118 teenagers. The study participants, who had lived in the same houses their whole lives, were chosen at random from a 100-by-150-kilometer block in eastern Finland. Some kids lived on rural, isolated farms, while others lived in larger towns. The researchers controlled for factors such as whether family members smoked, if pets lived in the house, and what type of allergens the subjects were sensitive to ensure that correlation with the bacteria’s health benefits wasn’t driven by a single allergen.
Keep reading on wired.com
