Sleeping on animal fur in infancy reduced childhood asthma risk

Infants who slept on animal fur during the first 3 months of life had a reduced risk for developing childhood asthma, researchers said at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Munich.

“Previous studies have suggested the microbes found in rural settings can protect from asthma,” researcher Christina Tischer, of the Helmholtz Zentrum München Research Centre, Neuherberg, Germany, said in a press release. “An animal skin might also be a reservoir for various kinds of microbes, following similar mechanisms as has been observed in rural environments.”

Tischer and colleagues studied 2,441 children in a German birth cohort aged up to 10 years. Parental questionnaires were used to determine exposure to animal skin during the first 3 months of life, as well as risk factors and health outcomes.

Fifty-five percent of the children slept on animal skin during the first 3 months of life. There was a significant inverse association with wheezing (adjusted OR=0.75; 95% CI, 0.60-0.94), physician-diagnosed asthma (aOR=0.62; 95% CI, 0.39-1) and physician-diagnosed hay fever (aOR=0.65; 95% CI, 0.46-0.92) up to age 10 years in those children. Physician-diagnosed eczema and allergic sensitization to aeroallergens at 10 years did not have a significant association with sleeping on animal fur.

The odds of having asthma at age 6 years was 79% lower in children who had slept on animal skin compared with unexposed children. By age 10 years, the risk for asthma decreased to 41%, the release said.

“Our findings have confirmed that it is crucial to study further the actual microbial environment within the animal fur to confirm these associations,” Tischer concluded.

For more information:

Tischer C. #851071. Presented at: European Respiratory Society 2014 International Congress; Sept. 6-10; Munich.