Amish children are remarkably immune to allergies, says expert

Amish children are remarkably immune to allergies, says expert


(NaturalNews) The Amish, it seems, place themselves at risk every day of
their lives. They refuse to vaccinate their children, exposing
themselves to disease. They drink raw cow's milk, exposing themselves to
salmonella. They even - and this is really disturbing - favor natural
food, exposing themselves to tomatoes that contain cracks. Given these
eccentric practices, isn't it inevitable that their communities become
breeding grounds for allergies and asthma? Not according to Dr. Mark
Holbreich, an allergist who has been treating Amish families in Indiana
for over 20 years.

Holbreich was inspired to investigate the
allergy rates among Amish children when he began researching the
so-called 'farm effect' (the notion that children raised on farms
demonstrate lower allergy and asthma rates than their urban
counterparts) in central Europe. Keen to investigate whether the farm
effect also manifested itself in the United States, Holbreich assembled a
team of German researchers to compare farming and non-farming children
in Switzerland with Amish children of Swiss descent in Indiana.

Altogether,
Holbreich's team assessed the health of 157 Amish children,
approximately 3,000 Swiss farming children, and almost 11,000 Swiss
non-farming children between the ages of six and 12.

Holbreich
found that a mere five percent of the Amish children were diagnosed with
asthma, versus 6.8 percent of the Swiss farming children and 11.2
percent of the Swiss non-farming children. Moreover, only seven percent
of the Amish
children tested positive for predispositions towards allergies, versus
25 percent of the Swiss farming children and a whopping 44 percent of
the Swiss non-farming children.

While Holbreich did not investigate why children raised on farms were healthier than non-farming children, he has his suspicions:

"This
[study] would suggest that if you have early life exposure [to
allergens], then somehow it drives the immune system away from
developing allergies,"
said Holbreich. "Large animals are part of it, and the straw bedding
animals sleep on. [Also] what [the Amish children] eat and the fact that
their mothers are in the barn when they are pregnant."

Holbreich's study was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Natural lifestyle, natural health

Holbreich's
study provides an interesting but somewhat predictable conclusion. The
Amish lifestyle, while imperfect, does offer children one significant
benefit that is denied to most non-Amish children: It forces them to
live in the real world. From a very young age, Amish children are taught
essential life skills such as gardening and farming, sewing and
knitting, making natural remedies, carpentry, and construction. These
skills, aside from ensuring their continued self-reliance and
independence from the state, fosters an environment that is conducive to
superior health. The children are physically active, routinely exposed
to dirt and grime, hardened by the elements, and shielded from
allopathic poisons. These facts, coupled with their avoidance of
vaccinations, explain why the Amish are putting many of us to shame in
the health department.

Source:-
http://www.naturalnews.com/039136_Amish_immunity_allergies.html