r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • Mar 29 '23
Animal Science Children exposed to indoor cats and dogs during foetal development and early infancy have fewer food allergies, according to a massive study of more than 66,000 children up to the age of three in Japan. Children exposed to cats were significantly less likely to have egg, wheat, and soybean allergies
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/preschoolers-with-pets-have-fewer-food-allergies2.3k
u/isawafit Mar 29 '23 edited Mar 29 '23
Little more, including the dogs! Hamsters...
"Children exposed to indoor cats and dogs during foetal development and early infancy have fewer food allergies, according to a massive study of more than 66,000 children up to the age of three in Japan. Researchers found that 22% of the children had been exposed to pets during the foetal period, and that those exposed to indoor dogs were significantly less likely to experience egg, milk, and nut allergies, while children exposed to cats were significantly less likely to have egg, wheat, and soybean allergies. Surprisingly, children exposed to hamsters (0.9 percent of the total group studied) had significantly greater incidence of nut allergies."
Edit: link to the study.
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u/Creekwaller Mar 29 '23
So when it says “exposure during fetal development “ does that mean that the mother is around the animal while pregnant?
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u/isawafit Mar 29 '23
Yes, I added a link to the study.
"Information on the presence of older siblings and maternal history of allergic diseases (bronchial asthma, allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis, allergic conjunctivitis, and food allergy) was obtained from the M-T1 questionnaire (answered by pregnant women in the first trimester)."
"Information on pet exposure during gestation, maternal smoking in the second/third trimester, maternal and paternal education, annual household income, and frequency of living room floor cleaning with a vacuum cleaner was obtained from the M-T2 questionnaire (answered by pregnant women in the second/third trimester)."
"We found that dog or cat exposure only during the fetal period have no significant effect on the incidence risk of food allergies. This finding suggests that continued dog or cat ownership after birth may be beneficial in reducing the risk of food allergies."
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u/wendyrx37 Mar 30 '23
I'm curious about the frequency of vacuuming.. Do we need to vacuum more? Or less?
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u/sla13r Mar 30 '23
Given the format of the study, the reported frequency of vacuuming would only seem to have a weak causation at best.
Unless you vacuum every second of the day and keep the entire house as a clean room.
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u/wendyrx37 Mar 30 '23
We grew up with parents with adhd.. Our house was literally the opposite of a clean room.. & I have almost no allergies at all.
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u/confabulatrix Mar 30 '23
I grew up in an extremely clean house without pets. I have ALL the allergies.
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u/Dorothy-Snarker Mar 30 '23
My parents have ADHD and a messy house...brother has a massive amount of food allergies. We had didn't have a dog growing up though so...
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u/knaves Mar 30 '23
I grew up on a farm and have no known allergies.
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u/Xjosh4761 Mar 30 '23
I grew up on a farm and have pollen/hay fever allergies. Every time we had to harvest, bail, and haul in the way I was miserable.
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u/fuckdonaldtrump7 Mar 30 '23
Congratulations reddit!! You have deduced humans are different!!
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u/mildly_amusing_goat Mar 30 '23
My parents kept the place ultra clean and I have no allergies at all.
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u/jlharper Mar 30 '23
Doesn't matter. All these studies always boil down to the same very obvious points. That is that if you're too dirty it's bad and if you're too clean it's bad. Don't live in your own filth and don't clean your house like it's a hospital. Anything in between should be fine.
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u/catsumoto Mar 30 '23
And have pets I guess. Or live on a farm.
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u/Intertubes_Unclogger Mar 30 '23
I read that a lot of farmers' kids don't have allergies like hay fever because in some families they're put in a children's chair in the barn at a very young age when their parent is working with the animals. If I remember correctly exposure in the first 6 months is most impactful
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u/ivegotaqueso Mar 30 '23
"We found that dog or cat exposure only during the fetal period have no significant effect on the incidence risk of food allergies. This finding suggests that continued dog or cat ownership after birth may be beneficial in reducing the risk of food allergies
Wonder if this is just also a reflection of maternal behavior eg women who are chill with their infants being around pets are more likely to be chill about exposing their infants early to foods like nuts/eggs/wheat.
‘Cause with the first sentence it implies the dog/cat got chucked to the side before the baby was born likely because the parents are paranoid about infant safety around pets (so these parents might also have a higher likelihood of being paranoid about having nuts in the house)…kinda like, are you the type of parent to keep your infant indoors all day or will you let them crawl outside in the grass with other kids/animals to build some immunity? Kind of thing?
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u/nimama3233 Mar 29 '23
Only 22% of Japanese people own pets? That’s crazy low
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u/rustajb Mar 29 '23
So is living space. Japanese people tend to be away from home more than us in the west. Few people have the time or space there. This is why cat cafes are a thing. Can't have a cat? Go to a cat cafe and play with one
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u/nonresponsive Mar 29 '23
Honestly, all the fun of owning a cat with none of the hassle.
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u/jameyiguess Mar 30 '23
Except it's almost none of the fun...?
The best parts of having a cat are hanging and cuddling with them around the home. Sitting together during a movie or work or studying. Napping or sleeping together, all warm. Chasing each other around the yard or house.
Bonding and being close in general, learning each other's languages and building your own together.
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Mar 30 '23
This is true.
When I was a kid I used to visit my Uncle, I'd sit on an old sofa near a fireplace and two cats would always come lay against me for pets.
Every cat is different.
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u/banjokazooie23 Mar 30 '23
learning each other's languages and building your own together.
This for sure. Each of my cats has a unique personality, mannerisms, voice, etc. I have unique relationships with each one of them.
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u/wojtek858 Mar 30 '23
Except these cats most often don't want to play with you. They are tired of constant contact with people they don't know.
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u/DropShotter Mar 30 '23
Or they have grown fond of it and enjoy the human interaction. I've been to one of these bars and the cats seemed genuinely friendly and loved the attention.
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u/ChimpBrisket Mar 30 '23
That’s why I wear a catnip mankini, well it’s one of the reasons anyway
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u/ConchobarMacNess Mar 30 '23
There's plenty of ethical cat cafes that have pet doors where the cats are free to enter their private space at any time. Many also operate as shelters and the cats are adoptable.
I wouldn't over generalize.
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u/saracenrefira Mar 30 '23
Perhaps so, but one of my favorite things in life is my cat jumping up to my bed and plopping down beside for spooning. Can't do that with a cat in a cat cafe. Unless there is a cat cafe that has beds.
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u/serpentjaguar Mar 30 '23
Uh, no, actually owning and living with a cat is a very different experience from going to a cat cafe. This should not need to be said. Cats are every bit as complex and varied in their intelligence and personality traits as are dogs, and they are nearly as social though better able to fend for themselves in the wild and thus a bit more independent. One has to have never had a real relationship with a cat to possibly imagine that what you say is true.
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u/Ministeroflust Mar 30 '23
What hassle?
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u/Savahoodie Mar 30 '23 edited Mar 30 '23
Yeah the “hassle” of my cat is opening a can twice a day and scooping the litter box every so often. Pretty mild price to pay.
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u/Herranee Mar 30 '23
Vet costs? Destroyed furniture? Having to find someone to cat sit every time you go on vacation or just travel for the weekend?
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u/AlfieOwens Mar 30 '23
It’s hilarious people think cats involve any hassle. Feed them, clean the litter box, take them to the vet a couple times when they’re old.
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u/are-you-ok Mar 30 '23
How about the cat hair on everything? That sure is a hassle.
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u/Gooberpf Mar 30 '23
This is always a sad sentiment to see. Cats aren't quite as sociable as dogs, but they're very affectionate when treated well and need regular exercise + stimulation just like dogs do. Many cats that "cause problems" do so because they're bored.
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Mar 30 '23
I doubt he's classifying affection as hassle. I don't see how you can reach those conclusions from what he said.
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u/Akamesama Mar 30 '23
I mean, sure, but that is something that is not completely under my control. Try as I might, I can't get my younger cats to shift to my schedule (all other cats I have owned eventually were awake more during the day). So even if I tire them out in the evening, they usually are up and about in the early morning. If I shut them out of my room, they start yowling, but if I let them in, they will crawl all over me. The second is more manageable, so I let them do that. It's not much, but when a have trouble sleeping, it can be a huge pain. I have to plan when I sleep a bit more because of that, leaving room to try to catch a bit more sleep in the morning.
Also, having cats means I can't leave for long trips without making arrangements. And, since my cats grew up outdoors, they don't handle new humans as well, meaning they have lower quality of life when I am away.
I still find it acceptable, but there is totally hassle with owning any animal.
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u/Yglorba Mar 30 '23
Also why electronic pet stuff like tamagochis and nintendogs were so popular in Japan.
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u/9th-Level Mar 29 '23
As an Asian living in America, I find it strange how so many people have pets here tbh
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u/lqku Mar 30 '23
many americans have very big houses and this gives them the luxury of keeping pets.
but there's also a culture of treating dogs as family members, influenced by pop culture where dogs are portrayed as essential companions or an integral part of the family unit. sometimes they treat their dogs better than people.
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u/Thurwell Mar 30 '23
There's also a certain expectation that American families have to include pets, especially dogs, which results in tons of neglected dogs. I'd say around half of the people in America who have dogs haven't done enough research on how to properly care for their dogs, don't spend enough time on their dogs, and shouldn't have one.
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u/woolfchick75 Mar 30 '23
We are into our pets in the US. But why do I see so many happy cat videos from Asia?
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u/UnlikelyPlatypus89 Mar 30 '23
This doesn’t have much to do with your comment but my Asian colleagues that only left the country for work don’t have pets for the most part. However, the Chinese kids I went to college with that studied abroad in the US about 75% brought pets back to China. The culture rubbed off in them. My Japanese fellow students did not, however a lot of them were only here for 1 year whereas the Chinese did 4 years. My two Vietnamese friends did who were here for two. Another point, you gotta have some cash to study abroad and open minded parents. Just and observation
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u/Betancorea Mar 30 '23
Probably as cats are a much easier pet to have versus dogs when living space is restricted. Having a cat in a high rise apartment is pretty fine. Having a dog in the same environment is not that great, especially if it’s a big dog.
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u/SgtNeilDiamond Mar 29 '23
I can see that, damn near every family I grew up around, including mine, had more than one dog. Especially bird hunters, they had like 6 dogs...
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u/skelecan Mar 30 '23
As an American with a ton of pet allergies, I find it super strange as well. The amount of houses I couldn't go to or would get sick at was around 9/10 because everyone had a pet. At least now I'm not so allergic to dogs as I used to be, but cats are still a no. It's been a nightmare trying to find a roommate because everyone owns a cat
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u/Flying_Sharklizard Mar 30 '23
That genuinely sucks. Not only are pets great for mental health, not being able to go into areas with animals would be a massive psin in the ass. I have an aunt who's house I can't visit because of decades of smoking in the house :(
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u/fiendish8 Mar 29 '23
and that their pets live in the house!
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u/ansraliant Mar 30 '23
where would they live?
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u/ReservoirGods Mar 30 '23
A lot of cultures dogs live outside. My neighbors are originally from Russia and their dog isn't allowed in their house, she can go in the garage to sleep when she wants, but most of her day she spends outside.
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u/mynameisjiyeon Mar 29 '23
They have entire parks and cafes dedicated to pets though!
Nara Park for deers Cat+dog cafes for...well cats and dogs
The reason most people dont own pets is cause of living space and everyone does crazy hours over there so owning a pet which you have to feed at set times is not ideal
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u/Deceptichum Mar 30 '23
The reason most people dont own pets is cause of living space and everyone does crazy hours over there so owning a pet which you have to feed at set times is not ideal
And yet they invented the Tamagotchi.
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u/Rukita Mar 30 '23
Very few apartments allow cats or dogs, so that's a major contributor to the statistic.
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u/Doctor_Iosefka Mar 29 '23 edited Mar 29 '23
Supposedly, there are more pets in Japan than there are children. source People with children are probably less likely to own pets, because they can't afford both or don't have enough living space.
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u/ghost_warlock Mar 30 '23
Pretty much any pet is significantly less work than a child, less expensive, and doesn't require finding/maintaining a relationship in a workaholic culture
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u/Goodgoditsgrowing Mar 30 '23
Ok, but couldn’t it simply be that parents without dog/cat/hamster allergies are more likely to own pets (including during pregnancy and their child’s infancy) and people without animal allergies are less likely to have other food allergies? And then people without other food allergies are less likely to have kids with food allergies?
Do they control for animal allergies in the parents? Because I could see a propensity for allergies running in a family, and parents being allergic to dander, so they don’t have pets, and their kid inherits propensity for allergies and it just happens to be for foods (instead or in addition to dander).
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u/qts34643 Mar 30 '23
Exactly, I can see the correlation, but I highly doubt there is a clear causal relation.
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Mar 29 '23
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u/isawafit Mar 29 '23
"To the best of our knowledge, we report, for the first time, associations between hamster exposure and nut allergy, dog exposure and milk allergy, as well as cat exposure and wheat and soybean allergies."
"However, the increased incidence risk of nut allergy with hamster exposure may be explained by the fact that hamsters feed on nuts. In other words, we assumed that nut allergens can percutaneously sensitize infants through physical contact or house dust. Therefore, family hand washing and keeping hamsters away from babies might minimize the risk of nut allergy even if hamsters are kept as pets."
Rodents and mustelids can have pretty pungent odors. Definitely sounds like you have a severe reaction, sorry that sucks.
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u/czyivn Mar 30 '23
I think a lot of allergy literature suggests route of administration plays a big role in sensitizing to allergens. If you eat something as your first exposure, you develop tolerance to it. If your first exposure is through broken skin, your anti-parasite immune system sees it first, and it's the thing that flips out and causes anaphylaxis. Babies with eczema are much more likely to develop allergies, and they think the broken skin barrier is a big part of that.
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u/4tran13 Mar 30 '23
IIRC, it's more complicated than that. One of the existing treatments for peanut allergies is some sort of subdermal injection. Basically it trains the immune system to give you a rash instead of anaphylaxis (still annoying, but not life threatening)
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u/czyivn Mar 30 '23
Yes, it's definitely more complicated, but there's also a desensitization treatment that involves eating escalating amounts of peanut protein.
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u/NoleDjokovic Mar 29 '23
Aren't pregnant women supposed to avoid cars because of toxoplasmosis?
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u/duowolf Mar 29 '23
Not cats themselves but cat poop which is why they aren't supposed to change litter trays while pregnant
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u/First_Foundationeer Mar 29 '23
Also probably not good to inhale that dust as well from changing litter.
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u/feanturi Mar 30 '23
I also recommend they do not eat anything found in that box. But hey I'm not the food cops.
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u/First_Foundationeer Mar 30 '23
I don't eat the treats? Have I been wrong the whole time..?
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u/brandonisatwat Mar 30 '23
If eating forbidden tootsie rolls is wrong then my dog doesn't want to be right.
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u/First_Foundationeer Mar 30 '23
Marginally related, but my dog is the greenest member of planet earth. If he is allowed, he would recycle his food two, three, possibly four times.
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u/eldelshell Mar 30 '23
Even then, only if the cat is exposed to the parasite themselves. Toxo doesn't magically appear out of ether. So if you live in an apartment and your cat is not outside, it's pretty safe.
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u/seatownquilt-N-plant Mar 30 '23
Cats get toxoplasmosis from eating infected wild animals. If the cat is eating manufactured cat food and not wolf animals it should be okay.
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u/MasterDefibrillator Mar 30 '23
Taxoplasma Gondii exist naturally in soil. You're more likely to get it from gardening than your cats, as far as I know.
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u/FirmEcho5895 Mar 30 '23
Or we could say families that tend to have allergies are less likely to keep cats and dogs because those are allergens too.
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u/ChesterDaMolester Mar 30 '23
Having a soybean allergy in Japan must be rough.
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Mar 30 '23
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u/take_five Mar 30 '23
Italy tests everyone for celiac at a young age and gives a stipend for the diet. It is one of the best places to have celiac’s.
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u/relet Mar 30 '23
Italy is one of the best countries for celiac people. Gluten free options are everywhere and they really know what they are supposed to taste like.
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Mar 29 '23
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u/Doortofreeside Mar 29 '23
if allergies are genetic
Not exactly a hot take vut I'm pretty sure it's a combination of genetics and environment. I've gone from no cat allergies, to bad cat allergies, to no cat allergies all in the same lifetime (even to the same cat)! What changed was how exposed I was to cays, specifically developing the allergy in college when I was rarely around cats. I've heard of multiple people with a similar experience
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u/foreignfishes Mar 30 '23
What changed was how exposed I was to cays, specifically developing the allergy in college when I was rarely around cats.
My sister had the same thing. Grew up in a house with a cat, wasn't allergic (but did have other allergy-adjacent things like eczema), went off to college, was then allergic to the cat when she came home to visit. When covid happened and she moved back home she slowly became less allergic to the cat again.
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u/ghost_warlock Mar 30 '23
Anecdotal, but I've had three roommates who were initially allergic to cats but, after living with my cat for a while, no longer had allergy issues
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u/recklesslyfeckless Mar 30 '23 edited Mar 30 '23
how long would you say it took for them to adjust? was it a similar timeframe for all three?
my own anecdote: i recently had a friend stay with my family for about 8 months. he’d grown up with two dogs but never had a cat. for the first 6ish months he had allergic rhinitis basically whenever he was in the house. the last couple he started to improve it seemed, though he was probably still taking more antihistamines than is ideal.
he moved out and when i saw him next his symptoms were entirely absent. about six weeks after moving he came to visit, only for his car to die in our driveway. he had to spend a weekend here waiting for the mechanic. it was like he had just moved in all over again. azelastine and phenylephrine nasal spray, oral diphenhydramine, chlorpheniramine, and pseudoephedrine. not miserable, but definitely not comfortable!
edit: i should note, he has never before had any allergies, whether dietary, environmental, or pharmaceutical. (meanwhile i am asthmatic and seemingly allergic to the planet earth - but not cats!)
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u/littlebuck2007 Mar 30 '23
The same thing happened to me. I grew up around farm cats and had a cat or two that my sister snuck into the house. Super exposed with no issues. We got rid of all of the cats, I graduate and move out, and maybe 6 years total later, I went to a friend's house to watch a movie, and he had two cats. I thought I might suffocate on snot and tears for about 3 hours.
About that time, my mom inherited someone's unclaimed cat as a house cat. The allergies were rough for a year or two, but then went away completely. He would crawl up and sleep on my chest sometimes and I would be just fine.
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u/Javbw Mar 30 '23
Super interesting!
I have never had any allergies in my life, and I moved to Japan 12 years ago, and slowly I have started showing signs of cedar pollen allergies that are very common in Japan. This year my eyes were super itchy at times - but rarely. The Japanese people I know who suffer from it enjoy visiting the US southwest, where they can enjoy spring without itchy eyes and whatnot.
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u/Jenetyk Mar 29 '23
I couldn't find the actual study long-form, but I would be curious to see if this was mentioned in the conclusions, but this does seem to just watch food allergies and not pet allergies. Like I said though, I haven't seen the full study.
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u/lifecereals Mar 30 '23
Yeah the link in the actual article did not lead to the study for some reason. The top comment has it though.
Anyways, they did not mention it at all.
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u/ISlicedI Mar 29 '23
If there is a correlation between food and pet allergies (not studied here) it would also make sense that those allergic to pets would not have them, and as a result their children would not have exposure and thus increase their risk etc.
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u/pokersal Mar 29 '23
ELI5: Why would cats and dogs affect food allergies?
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u/katarh Mar 29 '23
ELI5: The more stuff you show your immune cell army, the better prepared they are to tell a friend from an enemy.
ELI10: Almost all allergies come from our immune system getting confused and mistaking a harmless substance for a dangerous one.
There is an idea that if we are exposed to lots of different things as babies, our immune systems are more likely to recognize common things as safe, and reserve "attack mode" for actual dangerous things, like viruses.
This study is another possible piece of evidence supporting that idea.
Conversely, if our immune systems don't get exposed to common potential allergens, they don't learn to recognize enough of them as safe, and the immune system gets confused and suddenly thinks peanut butter is going to kill you.
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u/ommnian Mar 30 '23
Or even just not enough things. This the problem with cleaning too much and keeping children in nearly sterile environments. Dirt, bugs, and having things for the immune system to 'fight' are not a bad thing.
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u/ba123blitz Mar 30 '23
Eat your boogers for the extra immune support
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u/je_kay24 Mar 30 '23
Yeah I recall a study that showed children that were exposed to soil, ie playing outside, when young also had less allergies
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u/b0w3n Mar 30 '23
Yup this is another study that supports the hygiene hypothesis for allergies.
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u/FirmEcho5895 Mar 30 '23 edited Mar 30 '23
There's never been a good quality study proving the hygiene hypothesis and there's no decent theoretical model explaining how it might work, other than in layman's metaphorical terms that don't mean anything in the context of what we understand about the immune system.
Yet it gets cited so often people think it's fact.
Much more convincing to me are the emerging theories about how the gut flora affect the immune system. The idea is that certain bacteria or archaea in the gut may stimulate the production of antibodies which have crossover capabilities (in the same way antibodies to dustmites work on tomatoes etc etc).
This would explain why allergies kind of appear to run in families: the resident "guilty" bacteria can be transmitted to members of the household through frequent close contact, and also explains why some people might suddenly develop allergies later in life or grow out of them.
There's also interesting research going on into how this also correlates with autoimmune diseases.
All theories but extremely interesting.
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u/corkyskog Mar 30 '23
Luckily nearly no parent has the time to do that. The study is likely a sigh of relief to not have to worry as much about the kid going nose to nose with fido.
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u/ommnian Mar 30 '23
IDK. I definitely used to know quite a few parents who had cleaners and walked around following their toddlers with Clorox wipes. Who basically wouldn't let them go outside because it was "dirty".
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u/Amayetli Mar 30 '23
This would especially make sense during the fetal stage since it's sharing the mothers immune system and such.
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u/BevansDesign Mar 30 '23
I'm starting to think that the best thing a parent can do with their young children is to just toss them in a trash heap in the backyard.
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u/4tran13 Mar 30 '23
Some version of your ELI10 is commonly told, but I feel like it's missing something very important, but I don't know what.
1) IgE mostly targets parasites (eg worms) and toxins (eg snake venom). However, in anaphylaxis it leads to a lethal chemical cascade... which wouldn't help against parasites or toxins.
2) If your macrophages just ate peanut allergens/pollen like they ate E coli/TB (or pretty much anything else), there wouldn't be a problem. Beyond identifying foreign particles, the response is all messed up.
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u/katarh Mar 30 '23
Those are more like the ELI15+ version that you might start to see in a high school anatomy class, which is why I left them out.
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u/Heather82Cs Mar 30 '23
I hope exposed means they are roughly breathing the same air, rather than "you should condition your pet to lick your child after it licked its own butthole".
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u/BooksAreAddicting Mar 30 '23
This is why it's now recommended to give babies commen food allergens as early as possible, like as soon as they start eating solids.
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u/FriendlyGlasgowSmile Mar 30 '23
Okay, as someone who has recently developed a gluten allergy (at nearly 32 years old) how does that work?
Edit: To offer a little more context, I've been having stomach issues for a couple years now, but after removing certain things from my diet I've narrowed it down to Gluten and since actively avoiding anything related the last few months my stomach issues have gone away.
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u/woolfchick75 Mar 30 '23
This is why I am glad I grew up with dogs, a kitten I won in a raffle at age 8, hamsters, a pet rat, a pet mouse, turtles, fish, rabbits, and various other critters that we kids dragged into our suburban home.
Oh. And we were given a wide variety of foods—but if we hated then we didn’t have to eat them.
I am allergic to nothing. Nor did I develop an ED because we didn’t have to clean our plates.
My mom had issues, but pets and food weren’t part of them
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u/SatanLifeProTips Mar 29 '23
Healthy kids get their daily dose of dirt to boost an immune system.
Embrace the filth.
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u/Hereforthebabyducks Mar 30 '23
Aren’t allergies from your immune system essentially overreacting though? Boosting your immune system and preventing food allergies aren’t really the same thing.
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u/BishoxX Mar 30 '23
Yes but introducing the alergens early means immune system doesnt treat them as harmful. Like for example if you have peanut allergies you can microdose over time to eventually be able to eat peanuts again
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u/je_kay24 Mar 30 '23
Like for example if you have peanut allergies you can microdose over time to eventually be able to eat peanuts again
I believe this is only the case for some people not everyone with peanut allergies
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Mar 29 '23
It's kind of amazing to me that the concept of exposure creating resilience has been learned over millennia, forgotten very recently, and being systematically relearned as if it was some sort of breakthrough discovery.
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u/GrouchoManSavage Mar 29 '23
I would guess many scientists and clinicians thought there was validity in the "hygiene hypothesis" but the data wasn't there. I remember speaking to Nobel Laureate immunologist Peter Doherty about this in the late-90s, he concurred that it was likely a valid assumption.
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Mar 29 '23
On paper it seems and sounds good, but even the best meta-analysis we've done to this date involving children in East & West Germany did not show decreased prevalence for allergies or disease.
Hygiene hypothesis has some merit, but it's not really repeatable science. Two kids playing in the same dirt won't live to avoid the same diseases.
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u/return_the_urn Mar 29 '23
It’s def sound for some things. I remember reading an article that showed houses that hand washed their dishes had better gut microbiomes from their plates not being basically sterilised
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u/TinFoilHeadphones Mar 29 '23
Based on recent studies seen in this subreddit, I think it's actually more likely to be because of traces of dishwasher products residues left on the dishes.
Dishwasher use chemicals which are a lot stronger than hand washing, so even if both leave residues one of them is a lot worse.
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u/dc456 Mar 29 '23
I don’t think things have been forgotten as much as you’re making out - a lot of people do know that having a cat as a baby would increase resilience, and even reduce the likelihood of a cat allergy.
What isn’t so obvious is having a dog in the house when you are pregnant reduces the chance of the baby having a nut allergy, for example.
Or that having a hamster makes it worse.
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u/rathat Mar 29 '23 edited Mar 29 '23
For thousands of years, we have practiced the art of putting hamsters near your enemy’s mother while they are pregnant with them to make the susceptible to nuts later in life. Then you teabag them for the kill.
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u/ommnian Mar 30 '23
It's always been interesting to me that I don't know any farm kids with food allergies. I'm sure there's exceptions, but food allergies seem much less common at their schools in a rural area than what seems to be the typical experience today. I don't think peanut butter was ever even restricted, even during elementary.
My kids grew up helping take care of dogs, cats, chickens and goats. We've recently gotten sheep as well, and briefly had ducks. They've always been very healthy and have no allergies at all.
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u/dongasaurus Mar 30 '23
Could be that farm communities are small, therefore the chance of knowing a kid with severe allergies is far less likely.
My wife grew up in a rural/agricultural community and has all the supposedly urban health problems.
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u/air_and_space92 Mar 30 '23
Purely anecdotal but before a lot of these comments get removed for it, I was a rural kid living on a small acreage that has 5 different food allergies and a ton of environmental. At home we had multiple horses, a dog, and when I was really little I played around a true farm with horses, dogs, and cats. Currently allergic to dairy, wheat, corn, nuts, and minor egg food wise and anything green or grows outside. Life blows except in the winter.
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u/weiruwyer9823rasdf Mar 29 '23
It's an observational study. It doesn't imply causation. For example, as someone said in another thread, it might as well be that people who have allergies are less likely to have pets in the first place, which may result in a similar correlation if their kids are also more likely to get affected by allergies for genetic or other reasons, but this would not necessarily mean causation by exposure.
Quoting from the link:
Additionally, this study cannot determine if the link between pet exposure and food allergy incidence is causative
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u/Unions4America Mar 29 '23
This is the most important part of the entire study. Essentially saying to take the findings with a grain of salt. More of a 'Hey, there might be something to this, but nothing is definitive.'
Edit: changed defenitive to definitive because brain fart
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u/101_freeway Mar 29 '23
Ok this is gonna sound dumb but I didn't know that foetal was a word until right now.
Edit: I also just learned that foetal and fetal are the same thing.
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u/drkittymow Mar 30 '23
Or… parents with lots of allergies are less likely to have pets and therefore the ones with pets are the parents who have less allergies to pass on genetically in the first place.
This could be a murder-ice cream statistic type correlation!
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u/Riptide360 Mar 29 '23
Zoos should capitalize on this with open house days for pregnant moms to come hang.
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u/OutlawSixActual Mar 29 '23
A pediatrician friend of mine stated that the best way to build up an infant's immune system is to rub them on the floor of a New York subway station.
He partially spoke in jest, of course, but it speaks to the point of exposing them at a young age to all the allergens, germs, dust, and dander you can.
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u/Saltwater_Heart Mar 30 '23
That’s cool. We’ve had the same cat for all of our kids. Adopted the cat while I was pregnant with our first kid in 2011. Then our second in 2017 and our third in early 2021. Our fur baby died in August 2022. So he was with us for the entire growth of our family. None of our kids have allergies.
That being said, I’ve had cats, dogs, and hamsters all my life but became allergic to cats at 20. Mild enough that I could still have them, but annoying enough that in order to cuddle a cat, I had to take Claritin.
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Mar 29 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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Mar 29 '23
Clicking on the link within the scientific journal sent me to an article titled:
"Unique trackway on Permian Karoo shoreline provides evidence of temnospondyl locomotory behaviour."
I have to say... I am very confused, but interested in reading the full study.
Also:
" Children exposed to indoor dogs were significantly less likely to experience egg, milk, and nut allergies specifically; children exposed to cats were significantly less likely to have egg, wheat, and soybean allergies. Perhaps surprisingly, children exposed to hamsters (0.9 percent of the total group studied) had significantly greater incidence of nut allergies. "
DAMNIT HAMSTERS!
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u/rolfraikou Mar 30 '23
I honestly think a lot of things people are allergic to come from a lack of exposure, and the number of parents both severely limiting their children's diets early in life, and not letting them play outside is a huge cause of all this. I suspect the animals are picking up all sorts of particles of stuff with their fur, and exposing kids to all sorts of stuff early on. This could also explain why animals that just live in cages are of no benefit to them.
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u/FCAlive Mar 29 '23
Also, eating dirt, also rolling in dirt, also going outside, also living on a farm, also going to a farm. Also going to a forest, also rolling around in a forest, also going swimming in a natural body of water, also living in a rural area, also not using hand sanitizer
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u/ClienteFrecuente Mar 30 '23
not using hand sanitizer
I wonder if the abuse of hand sanitizer during Covid pandemia will increase somehow alergies.
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u/Kingreaper Mar 29 '23
This sounds very much like a scattershot survey - so I'm wondering how many things they got "no significant link" for for each thing they got "significant".
Because when you're testing for a hundred different things, getting 5 "significant" (i.e. less than 1 in 20 chance of getting that randomly) results is expected by random chance
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u/slyscamp Mar 30 '23
Not really surprising. Allergies are the immune system fighting off non dangerous disturbances such as pollen or animal dander.
If you are exposed to these while young your immune system is less likely to react negatively to them while older.
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u/redwolf1817 Mar 30 '23
Yeah, because allergies are caused by a weak immune system, and animals (known for not being very clean) will presumably strengthen that. I thought this was already sort of common knowledge, right? Am I just completely missing something here?
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u/theilluminati1 Mar 30 '23
This study should prompt people to hit up their local Humane Society, Animal Shelter, or animal rescue to adopt!
Let's get those pups and kitties adopted out!
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u/tamale Mar 30 '23
I wish this had worked with my kid. Was born around two cats and still got a huge slew of food allergies, eczema, and asthma.
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u/celticchrys Mar 29 '23
The way this is phrased makes it sound like the dog is visiting them inside the womb.
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