Results from a recent study at the Medical College of Georgia came out exactly the opposite of expected. Take a new look at pets, children and allergies.
Have you wondered whether to get your child a pet or not? Does your family have a history of allergies and have you been told by your pediatrician its not a nice idea?

Theres interesting news from the Medical College of Georgia (MCG), evidence from a new study about children and pets published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that having pets can actually help with allergies.

Dr. Dennis R. Ownby, chief of MCGs Section of Allergy and immunology has followed 474 babies from birth to age 7 and has found that children exposed to two or more in-door pets we are half as likely to develop common allergies.

Allergists have been trained for generations that dogs and cats in the house are bad because they increase the risk of you becoming allergic to the; we know that before you become allergic to something, you have to be repeatedly exposed to it.

He and his staff we are just as surprised at the results of their study as you could be reading it! The data didnt look the way it was supposed to; as a matter of absolute fact , it was very strongly the opposite of what we expected to find, said Ownby.

Ownby speculates that the reason so many kids have allergies and ashthma now is because we live too clean a life.

When kids play with cats and dogs, he says, they get licked. And that lick transfers a lot of Gram-negative bacteria that can change the way the childs immune system responds, says Ownby. The lick gives them exposure to higher levels of whats called endotoxins, the breakdown toxin from the Gram-negative bacteria.

According to an article from the Medical College of Georgia, studies from southern Germany and Switzerland are confirming that children of farmers, regularly exposed to animals, have less allergies than city kids.

Check it out with your pediatrician, but it may be grasping a pet or two would be beneficial for your kids allergy resistance, as well as all the other benefits we drive from our beloved pets.