Children who are raised on farms and with animals are far less likely to develop asthma.
The children on farms seemed to have greater protection than their friends who lived in the same village, but not on a farm.
Exposure to a far greater variety of micro-organisms could be giving the farm-living children a natural protection against asthma, say the research team from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Germany.
The discovery may help reduce the rates of asthma, which continue to rise in Europe and North America, say researchers.
(Source: New England Journal of Medicine, 2011; 364: 701).
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