Want healthier kids? Get a dog, study suggests

Your dog’s germs could protect your kids from disease, a new study shows.Infants who spend their first year of life with a pup in the house will get exposed to their microbes, which researchers found helps babies avoid things like fever and ear infections.The microbes that come off a dog — through their hair, skin and drool — could explain up to a quarter of how dog ownership helps a child in the first year of life.Researchers believe the rest might be explained by other things, like more time outside with the dog, that are boosting kids’ immune systems.“It has been suggested that in the future it may be possible to modify the home microbiota in ways that promote health,” says author and pediatrician Jenni Mäki.“Our study shows that dog ownership already does this today.”And broader research shows that a healthier first year can have big benefits for health as they get older, too.Researchers in Finland collected dust from homes keeping dogs and compared it with health records for about 368 babies.They found that eight microbes in the dust that came from dogs could help explain if the baby avoided an ear infection or fever, or if they had to take antibiotics.For example, Collinsella — which are found in the gut of both dogs and cats — was shown to increase the number of health weeks for a baby and decrease the amount of antibiotics they had to take.

When this bacteria was in the home it, also lowered instances of ear infections and fevers.Previous research showed this bacteria also helps diversity in the infant’s gut, which could help them avoid allergies and asthma.The strongest association researchers in this new study found is that pasteurella — found in the mouths and airways of dogs and cats — lowered time the baby spent sick with a fever.Avoiding illness at the start of life can have health benefits down the road.Kids who get sick more often during the first three years of their life are more than twice as likely to get sick later ...