Living with pets improves immunity

Study Reveals Intestinal Microbiome of Amish Babies Contains Multiple Beneficial Bacteria Leading to Robust Immunity

Living with farm animals may help us fight the disease, say researchers who have shown the benefits of early exposure to a wide variety of environmental bacteria. They came to this conclusion after observing the Amish people.

Amish refers to members of a religious group in the United States who live in a simple traditional way, often involving agriculture and no modern technology.

Scientists at Ohio State University found that the bacteria and other microbes of rural Amish babies were much more diverse (in a beneficial way) than those found in the intestines of city babies. They also found evidence of how a healthier intestinal microbiome could lead to more robust immune system development of the airways.

Scientists at Ohio State University found that the bacteria and other microbes of rural Amish babies were much more diverse (in a beneficial way) than those found in the intestines of urban babies.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

"Good hygiene is important, but from the point of view of our immune system, a healthy environment deprives our immune system of the possibility of being educated by microbes. Too clean is not necessarily a good thing, "said Zhongtang Yu, co-lead author of the study, a professor of microbiology at the Ohio State Department of Animal Science and a member of the Food Innovation Center of the State of Ohio. 'university.

The research team collected stool samples from 10 Ohio babies aged 6 months to about a year old. The five Amish babies lived in rural houses with farm animals. The other five babies lived in or near Wooster, a mid-Ohio town, and had no known contact with cattle.

The samples revealed important differences – in particular a large variation of microbes and an abundance of beneficial bacteria in the intestines of Amish babies, which was not found in their counterparts living in the city. Researchers were expecting it because of the exposure of babies to livestock and the fact that the Amish tend to lead a relatively less healthy life than most other Americans.

"The early immune system priming is very different in Amish babies, compared to urban dwellers," said Renukaradhya Gourapura, co-lead author of the study and a professor at the College of Sciences of the United States. food, agriculture and the environment and animal health, in the state of Ohio. Research program.

Previous studies on the Amish population and comparable populations around the world have established a clear link between rural life and a decrease in allergies and asthma, Gourapura said.

The researchers wanted to explore how different intestinal microbiomes might contribute to the development of the immune system. To do this, they used feces grafts from the babies participating in the study to colonize the bowel of newborn pigs.

They found a link between the various intestinal microbes of Amish and a more robust development of critical immune cells, particularly lymphoid and myeloid cells in the intestines.

"This is an important step as it opens the door for a better exploration of the details of the microbial links between the gut and the respiratory system of the respiratory tract in infants," Gourapura added.