Curious ElfWith the changing times, our human friends are gaining the ability to live a cleaner, healthier lifestyle. In the early days, people merely spent their time performing the household activity. Today, we are spending the same amount of time dumping our bodies with products to help us live a healthy lifestyle. With this, many of us develop an overactive immune system that may even start fighting with the harmless adversities in our body. That is the process of developing allergies.
It’s the immune system at play
Studies reveal that dogs and humans are more likely to have similar allergies. Yes, even dogs can be susceptible to developing allergies from dust, pollen, and foods like fish and prawns. What’s even more interesting is that this began to happen quite similar to how it started for us- a few decades ago. That is why sources suggest that nearly 1 in every five dogs visit the vet for allergy relief now and then.
Of course, mapping out each source of allergy in both humans and dogs is exceedingly tricky as it may vary due to environmental conditions, age, and many other factors. Each of them may also have very different treatments for the same. Dogs and humans both have different sets of treatments for their allergies too. Since we are cleaner now than we used to be before, these allergies are becoming more common and may continue to develop in the long run.
A microbiologist from the University of Helsinki also went on to say that if we contact several microbes, they start training our immune system to recognize if they are detrimental for us or not. That is why when we do not encounter these microbes, our immune system mistakes harmless adversities like dust and pollen as allergies for our body. The same is the case with these innocent dogs.
Several factors depend on the allergies you and your dog develop
A recent study found that dogs who encountered several microbes were more likely to have fewer allergies than those who had fewer ones. That may be because their immune system gets confused due to too many microbes in the body, making it confusing for the system to learn to differentiate between dangerous ones and harmless ones. During a study of 100 dogs, almost a third living in a single person’s home had a type of allergy compared to those others who lived in prominent families and roamed in outer space a lot.
Did you know that dogs are also used to understand the type of allergies that could be common in humans? This might have confused you as to why dogs are examined to understand the allergy in humans. Aren’t they entirely different species? But here’s the trick- These researchers are tough to study in humans as they are highly complex. Since dogs are more superficial beings and live in the same space as their owners, they can help reveal relevant allergies.
“The trends we discovered are pretty much applicable to people,” says Jenni Lehtimäki from the University of Helsinki. “If a dog is allergic, the owner may be allergic as well.”
A recent study shows that how dogs live and what their entire lifestyle looks like is a significant contributor in proving how likely they are to develop allergies. But it may also be dependent on the type of breed they belong to. French bulldogs are most likely to develop allergies. Very few bulldogs do not develop allergies because most of them do. Labradors, Golden Retrievers, and even West Highland Terriers may have genetic defects that affect their skin’s defense against allergens. Factually, congenital disabilities that affect the skin’s protection against allergens are common in humans as well.
The Bottom Line
Most of the studies that you read online will tell you that those who encounter more microbes are less likely to suffer from too many allergies. However, it isn’t safe to say that these conclusions apply to almost every human or dog. If you expose any person to too many microbes does not mean that their allergic reactions are likely to decrease. So, do not try that. It might just end up being more harmful to them. We are trying to say that the lifestyle can have a severe impact on them and their ability to deal with allergies.
