Researchers in a new study shed some light about the truth behind allergies, by reaching on the conclusion that excessively hygienic environments cause allergies and autoimmune disease.
The study compared lab rodents with their wild counterparts and conducted several blood tests on them, after which they found out that there is greater quantity of a particular kind of immune protein in the wild animals, and that they are better at coping with potential allergens.
The fact that Western populations appear to have the highest rate of allergies encouraged some scientists to come up with the “hygiene hypothesis”, which argues that exposure to more natural environments such as farms early in life helps train the body to respond appropriately to harmless microbes and pollen.
To investigate this, William Parker of the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, US, and his colleagues collected 58 wild rats and 10 wild mice. They extracted blood from the animals and compared serum levels of antibodies with those found in 45 rats and 20 mice bred and raised in the laboratory, which they claim parallels the cleaner environment of modern homes.
“The idea that there is a difference between wild and a lab animal is significant,” Newscientist quoted Jean Francois Bach of the Necker Hospital for Children in Paris, France, as saying.
The researchers are trying to delve into the study further but however they asserted that in increasingly sterile Western societies, people are no longer exposed to these allergens, which is why they suffer from so many allergies.