Children who grow up with a dog in the house are less likely to develop asthma, according to the largest study on kids and pets ever done.
The BBC reports on the Swedish study of more than 650,000 children and their pets.
The results, published in the medical journal, JAMA Pediatrics, “support the idea that pets can bolster the immune system and prevent allergy.”
“Children who had grown up with a dog in their home were less likely to have asthma at the age of seven than children without dogs. Living on a farm with lots of animals seemed to confer even more protection, cutting the risk of asthma by about 50 per cent.”
The researchers sounded one note of caution: “If you have an allergic child you should not get a dog to cure your child. It won’t work and will probably make the allergy worse.”
No words on cats, but they’re almost certain to be a problem, right?
