Pets Prevent Kids From Developing Asthma

Good news for dog owners! If you have a dog at your home, your kid is lucky.

Latest study carried out by Dr. Kei Fujimura, the molecular biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, proved that kids staying with pet dog(s) are less pron to develop asthma and any RSVs (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) or allergies.

Serrine Lau, a member of the research team said, “several longitudinal studies have shown that exposure to certain domestic animals, for example, indoor dogs, during a person’s early life (even possibly before he or she is born) is associated with strong protection against asthma and asthma-related conditions later in life.” According to the study the dusts in a house having pets have different microbial composition than the dusts in a house without a pet. Molecular biologist, Dr. Kei Fujimura, submitted his group's work at the General Meeting of the American Society of Microbiology. According to Dr. Fujimura, these findings are considered as the preliminary steps towards developing a proved therapy for the protection against RSV in infants, which will act as a mean to lessen the occurrence of asthma in long run. The group of researchers had experimented on mice, where they collected dust from a house with pet dogs. They mixed the dust in a solution and fed it to the some of mice.

In order to come into this conclusion, scientists carried on the experiments on a sample of mice, wherein the scientists collected the dust from houses with dogs as pets, mixed the same in a solution and fed it to some mice, who were given RSVs after 8 days. It was noticed that the mice that had been fed with the dust solution had developed immunity towards RSVs, while the mice that weren't given the solution had become susceptible to the virus attack.

The National Institutes of Health were highly impressed with the results of this research work, and they have invested around one million dollars into a grant for having the scientists work further to make the results more conclusive.