Asthma in Amish?!

In a new study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, Amish and Hutterite children were tested for Asthma. Researchers specifically chose these lifestyles because of their similar nature. However there is one difference, both homes of the Amish and Hutterite are kept immaculate but, Amish children do work and play in the barns with the animals which are close to their homes. On the other hand the Hutterite children's barns are far away from their homes and barely go into the barns. The study tested 30 of each children and the results were crazy! None of the Amish children had asthma but 6 out of the 30 Hutterite children did! Researchers than took the dust from each of the barns and after they analyzed the dust and found that the amish dust had a ton of bacteria where as the Hutterite dust was not. The dust gave the amish children neutrophils  (white blood cells that are the immune system’s paramedics). Finally they put mice in the two different kinds of dust and well the results were replicated from the original findings!

Personally having asthma, it makes me wonder if my environment as a child was too clean (who thought that was possible). It will be really awesome to see what researchers in the medical field will be able to learn from this possibly creating an anti-asthma treatment for children in generations to come!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/health/dust-asthma-children.html?_r=0