An Exploration of Rural vs Urban Living During Childhood - Essay Example

An Exploration of Rural vs. Urban Living during Childhood Diseases, such as asthma, hay fever and allergic sensitization, have recently increased among children grown in urban areas. This is not seen in rural areas where people are more exposed to micro-organisms. Studies suggest that children who are exposed to allergens from their childhood will produce an innate immunity in them. Along with exposure to microbes, consumption of raw milk, which contains whey proteins, also contribute to immunity in children. The aim of the present study is to discuss the evidences supporting the hypothesis that the children who are brought up on traditional farms are more protected from various atopic and allergic diseases than the children brought up in the urban areas. According to the study conducted, exposure to farm animals, domestic animals, straws, barns, sheds, fodder storage rooms, field cultivation, house dust, farm milk in early life and consumption of raw farm milk contribute to reduced asthma and atopy risk. But studies also show that pig farming is inversely related to atopy. Using objective measurements the present study confirms that the children growing up in the traditional farming environments are protected from asthma, hay fever and allergic sensitization. Introduction: Recent studies have shown a reduced percentage of diseases like asthma, hay fever and allergic sensitization in children who grew up in micro-organism-rich rural areas when compared to those children who grew up in the urban areas (Vlaski & Lawson 2013, p.1). Exposure and consumption of raw milk in childhood also contributed to a reduction in “atopic diseases”. According to hygiene hypothesis, transmission of infections by unhygienic contact with older siblings will provide an innate immunity. (Fahrlander n.d.). According to this concept, increase in allergies is due to decreased childhood infections, increased hygienic conditions and smaller family size. However this hypothesis was later modified .Recent hypothesis explains the importance of “non-pathogenic” microbial exposure in innate immune reactions. (Lappalainen 2010, p.18). Studies on raw milk reports suggest that reduced risk of asthma is associated with whey proteins such as “BSA, α and β lactalbumin”. Milk processing process such as heating may degrade these whey proteins which are sensitive to heat treatment. Whey proteins from bovine milk give a great contribution to immune reaction and “excessive inflammation”. Raw milk also contains milk allergents such as b-lactoglobulin and a-lactalbumin, which on early consumption decreases the risk for asthma. (Loss et al. 2011: 5). Bacterial substances such as endotoxin, peptidoglycan, muramic acid etc are found in the dust from farms. Studies have shown that bacterial substances present in the surroundings were inversely proportional to hay fever, atopic asthma and allergic sensitization. After exposure to endotoxin and other microbial compounds, the immune system will produce interleukin 12 and interferon gamma. These factors act against T-helper-2 cells and induce allergic action. (Riedler et al. 2001, p.1129). Th2 cells are the cells that respond to allergens. Th2 cells produce cytokine with “high levels of IL-4, IL-13, IL-9 and IL-5”, while Th1 cell response will be in lower levels. Reports suggest that domination of Th2 response is necessary in order to cause an allergic response. Presence of stimulus in the naïve T cell environment determines the type of Th cells to be activated. For example, presence of IL-4 favors Th2 cells whereas IL-12 and IFN favors Th1. (Tomicic 2008, p. 18). Activated Th2 cells produce typical cytokines. For example, production of IL9 induces eosinophil and mast cell differentiation and proliferation in bone marrow. Predominantly, IL-9 along with IL-13 are produced by Th2 cells in allergic response (19). Children raised in farming environments are more receptive to microbial components such as monocytic antigen “CD14, TLR2, and TLR4”. Hence the researchers concluded that childhood exposure to these allergens may lead to epigenetic changes which will alter gene expression. Asthma and allergic conditions are not contributed by a single gene; they are because of alterations in a number of genes interacting with the environment. (Mutius 2007). It has also been reported that farming environments and raw milk intake can result in the increased “Treg cell” numbers of 4 to 5 years old children. (Lluis et al. 2014). Certain microbial contaminants may suppress T-cell activity. “Mycophenolic acid” from aspergilla can be taken as an example. There are also other contaminants which can evoke the immune system. Listeria monocytogenes is one of the examples. (Ege et al. 2007). Atopic asthma is now considered as the most common form of the disease. Asthma is more commonly seen in young boys than in young girls. However, in the adolescent stage females are more susceptible to asthma. It is also observed that an early exposure to allergens in childhood is necessary to evoke a high immune response (Genetics and Asthma n.d.). Allergic asthma usually begins in childhood and may have several reasons for it. Patients with permanent asthma are less commonly seen. According to recent studies, pathogens such as rhino viruses can cause permanent asthma Exacerbations. An impaired immune response is seen in such patients infected with rhino virus. (Fishbein & Fuleihan 2012). Not all farming factors are seen to be causative factors for innate immunity in childhood. Agriculture, pig, and poultry farming and barns were found to be more effective factors for atopic sensitization. (Ege et al. 2007). Asthma, hay fever, and other such allergic conditions which are examples of “type 1 hypersensitivity” reactions are interrelated and are known to cluster not only in individuals but also in families (Arshad & Babu 2008). These atopic diseases are seen to be associated with lower quantity of Treg. Atopic diseases are also increased by pollution and xenobiotics in developing countries. (Fishbein & Fuleihan 2012). Research studies, surveys, large scale studies and any other evidences which show that exposure to farm environment in childhood reduces the incidence of atopy or allergic diseases will be analyzed in this paper. Methodology: Studies have been conducted to investigate the positive effect of being brought up in a farm and the investigation indicates that children who grow up in traditional farms are more protected from asthma, atopic dermatitis, hay fever and other allergic sensitization. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss evidence supporting the hypothesis that children brought up on traditional farms are protected from various allergic sensitizations. As this research is a literature based project and sets out to test the hypothesis, it uses results reported in published papers. Thus this research is primarily based on the secondary data from previous research papers. This data comes from large scale studies and the final results will be drawn based on the analysis of data from the previous researches. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this analysis as the aim of this paper is not only to present the previous data but also to discuss the interpretation of these data. The data for this paper were obtained from previous research paper and the search engines in database employed were PubMed, Science direct etc. There were many limitations in this research methodology employed as it is not possible to obtain all the existing research paper that supports this hypothesis. Also, there are innumerable numbers of research paper supporting the hypothesis and it is not possible to discuss each and every one of them in this paper. Results and Observations: According to data provided in the different research papers, most of the papers concluded that children who grew up in farms were protected from various allergic diseases. The Effect of Farming in Development of Allergy: The effect of farming and development of allergy is been discussed in research studies by authors such as PARSIFAL and GABRIELA and according to their investigation the early exposure to farm animals and domestic animals, the diversity of microbial exposure to straws, barns, sheds and fodder storage rooms, and field cultivation, endotoxins levels in the house dust, exposure to farm milk in early life and consumption of raw farm milk has been associated with a reduced asthma and atopy risk. This is based on the hygiene hypotheses which states that if you exposed microorganism rich environments which will help to influence the development of the body immunity in a way that decreases a child’s chance of developing asthma and atopy. Studies were performed by GABRIELA in the rural areas of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. In phase (I), the questionnaires were completed by parents of 79,888 children. This was to assess children’s prevalence towards allergic and respiratory symptoms and for diagnosis. Other factors such as socioeconomic status and family history (like maternal smoking, atopy and exposure to farming practices) were also assessed. In phase (II), the effect of farming exposure were assessed for 5 different time and 5 different frequency categories for how often and how long they were exposed. The average ages were 8.7 plus or minus 1.4 years. A wide ranging definition of asthma was used based on symptoms, diagnosis and if they had any treatment. The families who took part in phase (II) showed a higher prevalence towards allergic illness in the family. The figure above shows the study done on population and phase (I) and phase (II) data and blood sampling is recorded. The bar diagram shows the proportion of first time exposure to farm characteristics per age category. In most farm children, the first time exposure occurs during early stage of life, i.e. during pregnancy time. Higher percentage exposure during pregnancy showed in staying in fodder storage room and consumption of farm milk. The table shows multiple factors to which children are exposed and they are inversely correlated to asthma and other allergic diseases. According to this paper, children who have contact with animals such as cows and cultivation get protection from asthma, hay fever and atopic sensitization. Another research work conducted by GABRIELA was to study the effect of farm milk and how it can act on childhood asthma and atopy. Studied was done in rural areas of Austria and Switzerland. In phase (I) they looked the general population (34,491) and in phase (II), the questionnaire was completed by parents of 8334 school aged children, about the milk consumed by the child (whether it was directly from farm, purchased from shop, boiled or skimmed farm milk). Serum samples were collected to measure exact IgE levels. In phase III, parents were instructed to prepare milk as normal and the samples were assessed by the laboratory staff. Heated milk was put into category high heat–treated shop milk, pasteurized shop milk, heated farm milk, and raw farm milk. The table shows that 71.2% of exclusive shop milk consumption was reported among nonfarm children, while 45.0% of exclusive farm milk consumption was indicated among farm children. Most of the farm milk users drank unboiled farm milk and they were exposed to it throughout pregnancy and the first years of life. The children who drank exclusively farm milk in phase (II) were reported to show lesser odds ratios for current asthma, asthma, hay fever and atopy in comparison to children who exclusively drank shop milk. However, it was barely significant with atopic dermatitis. Consumption of both farm and shop (mixed milk consumption) show protection for atopy and hay fever. Unboiled farm milk consumption has been regularly inversely related to asthma, atopy, and hay fever in both mixed and exclusively farm milk drinkers. Independent of other farm exposures Consumption of raw milk was inversely related to asthma (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.59; 95% CI, 0.46-0.74), atopy (aOR, 0.74; 95% CI, .61-0.90), and hay fever (aOR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.37-0.69). (Loss et al. 2011). Consumption of boiled farm milk did not indicate any protection. The link between consumption of milk and asthma were stronger to amend for food allergen sensitization and atopy. From the data obtained, the highest number of microorganisms was found in raw milk samples and organism studied were lactobacilli (94.1%), staphylococci, micrococci (85.2%), bacilli, bacterial endospores (63.4%) and psychrotrophic bacteria (58.4%). Whereas less microorganisms were detected in most shop milk samples (both higher heated and pasteurized) and heated farm milk samples (25% detect in lactobacilli and micrococci and Read More