A study comparing of an Amish community in Indiana and a Hutterite community in South Dakota revealed that house dust from an Amish farming community gives protection children protection from asthma. The study examined 30 children from both farming communities.
CBC reported that none of the Amish children had asthma while six Hutterite children had the condition. The researchers did blood tests on all of the children in both communities and found that children from the Amish community had more white blood cells called neutrophils in their body and these cells were said to be key in fighting infections.
Asthma protection among Amish traced to house dust, cows https://twitter.com/LATkarenkaplan/status/761278077951442944
— CBC Tech and Science (@CBCTechSci) August 4, 2016
House dust from both the Amish and Hutterite communities were also examined by the researchers. The Independent reported that mice were exposed to the house dust and that the Amish house dust had more microbes in it. Findings revealed that mice exposed to house dust from the Amish community had a "significant" level of protection against allergies, something not seen from Hutterite house dust.
"There's no obvious dirt in the Amish homes, no lapse of cleanliness. It's just in the air, and in the dust," said Professor Carole Ober, one of the researchers, as per the report. Ober, the chairperson of human genetics at Chicago University, added that re-creating the "time-tested Amish experience" can possibly help protect children from asthma.
A report from Science Daily quoted immunologist Donata Vercelli as saying that the second experiment showed that products from an Amish environment give protection from asthma. Vercelli is a professor of cellular and molecular medicine and associate director of the Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center at the University of Arizona.
The report said that only around 5 percent of Amish schoolchildren aged 6 to 14 have asthma. This is compared to the 10.3 percent average asthma prevalence rate for children aged 5 to 14 for all American children and the 21.3 percent asthma prevalence rate in children from Hutterite communities.
