Childhood Asthma Rates Can Be Reduced Through Cat Exposure
According to new research, having a cat around infants can help reduce asthma in children.
Researchers from Denmark's Copenhagen Studies on Asthma in Childhood Research Center (COPSAC) believe that cats can help children from developing asthma.
The researchers concluded that cats counteract the effects of a certain gene in our bodies. When this gene is activated, children are twice as likely to develop activated. They believe that if a cat is present in the family when the child is born, the gene is never triggered, and the risk of asthma is much reduced.
Hans Bisgaard is a pediatrician and the president of COPSAC. He is also the study's principal author, and he says he was surprised since the study revealed that genes linked to diseases may be turned on and off like a light switch depending on the environment we are in.
He claims that it demonstrates how significant the link between our DNA and our environments is, particularly during pregnancy and the early years of a child's existence.
The study examined 377 Danish children whose mothers had asthma, using surveys and samples to examine their mapped genes as well as information about their settings and upbringing. They discovered that cats reduced the chance of asthma developing in children with a certain variant of the gene 17q21, usually known as TT. This gene has the most influence on whether or not the children develop asthma, and about one-third of the youngsters carried the TT variant gene. Whether or not their mother had asthma had no influence on that statistic.
The researchers discovered that only cats seemed to make a difference in the development of asthma in children with the TT gene variant, but exposure to dogs early in life had no effect. Furthermore, they believe cats helped guard against asthma and bronchitis because the 17q21 gene is linked to these illnesses.
Because these findings reveal that genes and the environment interact so precisely and yet in such unknown ways, more research is needed to examine the broader ramifications. Because the study doesn't specify what it is about cats, or whether it is cat-specific, that helps protect youngsters with certain gene mutations, the researchers want to know what kind of and how much early contact to cats would have an effect.
Co-author Jakob Stokholm believes that something in the bacteria that cats carry, or fungi or viruses peculiar to cats that youngsters are then exposed to, can alter the immune system. According to Stokholm, this could pave the way for future research into how to prevent youngsters from having asthma in the first place.