Growing up with a dog during childhood, more precisely between the ages of 5 and 15, reduces the risk of developing Crohn’s disease.
- Crohn’s disease is characterized by abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, etc.
- Researchers have found that growing up with a dog between the ages of 5 and 15 may reduce the risk of developing this disease.
- In contrast, people who lived with a bird at the time of the study were more likely to develop the disease.
Many children ask for a dog… If parents are hesitant, here is one more argument to decide: according to a study published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Growing up with a dog reduces the risk of developing Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Crohn’s disease: ghiking with a dog has a protective effect
Crohn’s disease is characterized by abdominal pain that can be very severe (similar to appendicitis), diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, etc. Seeking to unravel the mysteries of this pathologyscientists have studied the impact of dozens of environmental factors on the likelihood of developing it. This is how they discovered a surprising fact: growing up with a dog would have a protective impact. In fact, children who lived with this pet between 5 and 15 years old had a healthier microbiota and less risk of developing Crohn’s disease than others.
“We have established links between environmental factors and Crohn’s disease and are now trying to understand how these environmental factors influence the onset of the disease.”, explains Kenneth Croitoru, one of the authors of the study, in a press release. In other words, for the moment, scientists have discovered that having a doggie by your side during childhood has a beneficial effect on the microbiota, but they do not yet know why.
Crohn’s disease: better understanding to predict risks
This study allowed researchers to learn other lessons about the risk factors for Crohn’s disease:
- Being born into a large family, especially during the first year of life, reduces the risk of developing Crohn’s disease.
- In contrast, people who lived with a bird at the time of the study were more likely to have the disease.
To achieve these results, scientists studied the medical records of more than 5,000 healthy participants, first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease. This pathology is, in fact, linked to genetic and environmental causes. The data was collected over 15 years, during which 120 people developed the disease. “By understanding what is different in those who develop the disease, we should be able to predict who is at risk“, underlines Kenneth Croitoru.
In France, in 2015, 212,700 people were treated for IBD. Among them, 60% had Crohn’s disease and 40% had ulcerative colitis.
