Maintain dogs can protect children from asthma and allergies

A study suggests one of the benefits of getting a dog for the health. Recently, researchers found that children whose families keep dogs are less likely to develop asthma and allergies.

This is because the presence of the dog to change the type of microbial communities in the dust of the house. In the end, the microbes in house dust will affect the health of infants and lower intestinal immune system's response to allergens. Researchers have even found that some species of bacteria in the gut is important to protect the airways against allergens and viruses that can lead to respiratory infections.

Although these experiments were conducted in mice, but the researchers suggest that this may explain why babies are often adjacent to the dogs since birth had a smaller risk of allergy and asthma, as reported by MSN Healthy Living.

The results obtained by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Michigan is also revealed that changes in gut bacteria can affect the function of the immune system. Lead researcher Susan Lynch even explained that changes gut bacteria can later be developed into a way to protect the body from infection and respiratory diseases.

Previous same research team also found that the dust in the house that has dogs have different bacterial composition compared to people in the house there was no dog. Even so, the results of this study does not mean you should immediately have a dog. In addition to a new study conducted on mice, researchers also explained that the results of this study do not indicate a causal connection.