Household Dogs and Cats Profoundly Beneficial to Children

Children exposed to dogs had less risk of developing egg, milk, and nut allergies.  Gettty Images

"The finding that exposure to dogs and cats is related to less food allergy seems pretty solid and agrees with several prior studies."

"[The new study] adds to the growing literature that contacts with pets could have many health benefits for children. In addition to food allergy, other studies have found lower rates of atopic dermatitis, wheezing illnesses, respiratory allergies, asthma and increased psychological well-being."

Professor James Gern, chief, Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, University of Wisconsin, Madison

 

"Families with a strong family history of allergy are likely to have parents with pet-dander allergies.This makes it less likely that they will get pets for their children."

"So the inverse relationship between pets and allergies may be owing to the allergic parents not wanting to react to pets themselves."

Tom Marrs, senior author 2019 study

A new study found young children exposed to cats or indoor dogs had a lower risk of all food allergies compared with babies in pet-free homes.   Paulo Sousa/EyeEm/Getty Images

 

Professor Gern published his own paper in 2004 that indicated the benefits of dog ownership in reducing the risk of all manner of allergies. But it was a new study, published in the journal PLOS One, led by Hisao Okabe of the department of pediatrics at the Fukushima Medical University that he was referring to. Hisao Okabe and his colleagues studied pet ownerships' link to food allergies overall, including a variety of specific food allergies. 

 

The new study from Japan had over 65,000 infants and parents enrolled, the largest such study yet. The conclusion appeared that in households with cats or dogs it was seen that children were less likely to develop food allergies. If exposure takes place during fetal development with a pregnant woman living with pets, the effect is still recognized.  During fetal development exposure to dogs or cats (or in the first few months of life) lowered odds of a later food allergy by some 14 percent. 

 

The benefit was most robust when the animals were kept indoors and exposure took place during fetal development as well as throughout infancy.

Their finding was that having a dog in the household had the effect of reducing risk of egg, milk and nut allergies. Cat ownership was also found to reduce the risk of egg, wheat and soybean allergies. Possible effects from other pets was also brought in to the study, with no significant association determined between food allergies and exposure to turtles, hamsters or birds.

The reduced risk of food allergy development as a result of living with dogs was still less in the most current study than in a paper previu9sly published, in 2019, a study which directly tested young children for food allergies rather than reliance on parents' questionnaires. It was that study that found living with dogs reduced the potential of developing food allergies by a whopping 90 percent. It also revealed that more dogs in a household, all the better. No infants in the study where at least two dogs shared a household developed a food allergy.

Parentss ay want to consider getting a dog or cat  Getty Image

"I definitely would say it's been a murky area, but this study looks fairly convincing", commented Amanda Cox, professor of pediatrics at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, in New York. She revealed that parents routinely ask her opinion on whether household pets increase or decrease their children's risk of developing allergies.

Last year, a review was published highlighting proven methods of reducing development of allergic disease which included breastfeeding exclusively for the first four to six months following birth; avoiding cows' milk in the first days of life; introducing peanuts in an age-appropriate manner; and growing up on a farm. "I would be interested in knowing whether spending more time inside with pets during the pandemic increased the effect on children's allergies", mused Dr. Cox.

"The authors [new study from Japan] may be over-interpreting the relationship between pets and specific food allergies like milk or wheat. They performed numerous comparisons, increasing the possibility that some random associations will be deemed significant."

"The benefits of exposure to animals have been demonstrated in several different contexts, such as with pets [like this study], farm animals [Central Europe, Amish and Wisconsin dairy farms}, and even pests [mice and cockroaches] in disadvantaged inner-city homes."

"Perhaps the overall message is that a biodiverse environment promotes immune development and healthy children."

Professor James Gern, University of Wisconsin

Owning a pet dog or cat could help your child avoid developing food allergies, new research shows  Getty Images