Want to Decrease Your Child's Risk of Pet Allergy? Better Act Fast!
The past few years have seen increasing interest in potential strategies to reduce the risk of allergy and asthma in young children. One particularly popular topic has been that of early pet exposure potentially decreasing the risk of animal allergy. Indeed, I am often asked by parents of my young patients if I recommend adding a furry pet to the household. However, it has been unclear how early in life the pet exposure needs to occur in order to modify risk. A recent analysis of data from the Detroit Childhood Allergy Study sheds some light on this important question. It was published in the July 2011 issue of the peer-reviewed medical journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy. (Clin Exp Allergy. 2011;41:920-922) Annual interviews from 1987 through 1989, and follow-up interviews at age 18 years, were used to assess study subjects' exposure to indoor dogs and cats. After analyzing pet exposure during the first year of life, specific age ranges, and cumulative lifet...