Do U sleep with your animal? Enjoy the bacteria!

by chrisjoel 29 Replies latest social current

  • laverite
    laverite

    Wasblind - lol. Believe me, I'm serious. I wouldn't even complain about a little extra bacteria. For the right "animal" I'd even throw the bacteria a welcome party. Lol.

  • wasblind
    wasblind

    Laverite,

    I have not laughed so hard all day, thanks

  • RubaDub
    RubaDub

    We keep a small bowl of Listerine next to the water bowl in the kitchen.

    We have our Terrier trained to take few laps of the Listerine after licking his ass.

    Much better breath and healthier for all in the family.

    Rub a Dub

  • sammielee24
    sammielee24

    And yet how many people go to Taco Bell and eat pink slime..or put aspartame in their drinks...or inhale exhaust fumes every day...or use drugs, alcohol etc...let's put it in context. Too bad the writer didn't tell us if the rate of death or disease was higher than say..dengue fever or cholera or Hep 1.....all in context...don't kiss yer pet but a big hug won't kill most people. And yeah...if you aren't washing your sheets even without the dog sleeping in the bed, then you aren't worth sleeping with at all! sammieswife

    ------------

    You never just how you're gonna go, but odds are it's one of these 15 causes of death. According to the World Health Organization's World Health Report, these 15 causes of death make up about 58 percent of all deaths.

    CausePercent of total
    1. Ischemic heart disease 12.6
    2. Cerebrovascular diseases 9.7
    3. Lower respiratory infections (e.g., pneumonia) 6.8
    4. HIV/AIDS4.9
    5. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease4.8
    6. Diarrheal diseases 3.2
    7. Tuberculosis 2.7
    8. Malaria (tied) 2.2
    9. Cancer of trachea/
    bronchus/lung (tied)
    2.2
    10. Road traffic accidents 2.1
    11. Childhood diseases 2.0
    12. other unintentional injuries (tied) 1.6
    13. Hypertensive heart disease (tied) 1.6
    14. Suicide (tied) 1.5
    15. Stomach cancer (tied)
  • Finally-Free
    Finally-Free

    My bird likes to pluck out my nose hairs, which I allow, but I won't let him stick his tongue in there. I've got to draw the line somewhere.

    W

  • wasblind
    wasblind

    " We have our Terrier trained to take few laps of the Listerine after licking his ass."

    I hear you loud and clear Rub-A-Dub

    but if you hear any yelpin' it will be

    because the dog licked himself again after

    he licked the listerine, that stuff burns the mouth

    you know it'll burn down there

  • Robdar
    Robdar

    OMG! All y'all have me laughing my ass off!

  • moshe
    moshe

    Maybe a pet is actually good for most of us--

    "-For years, the long-held belief among allergists and parents has been that children who have dogs and cats are at greater risk of developing pet allergies. To become allergic to something, you must be repeatedly exposed to it was their reasoning. But recent research suggests that the opposite may actually be true.

    In a study published in the August 2002 issue of JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association), researchers were surprised to find that children raised in homes with several animals were up to 77 percent less likely to have allergies than children raised without pets.

    In the study, researchers tracked the health of 474 children from suburban Detroit from birth to age 7, as well as the number of pets at their homes. When the children were 6 or 7, they were tested for common allergies.

    The results showed that children who were raised with two or more dogs or cats in the home during the first year of life were much less likely to develop both indoor and outdoor allergies than children who weren't raised with pets.

    In October 2003, a study by a team of Swedish and American researchers that was published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology produced similar findings. In a group of 2,500 children, those who continually owned dogs or cats while growing up were less likely to be allergic to pets than new pet owners and children who had only brief exposure to pets while growing up.

    More recent studies in the February 2006 issue of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology and the December 2006 issue of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology have also shown that children who grow up with animals in the home seem less likely to develop a range of allergic conditions later in life.
    Scientific theories

    Why does having childhood pets seem to convey this protective health benefit? It's an intriguing question that scientists want to answer but can only speculate on for now.

    Allergies and asthma have been on the rise in the United States and other developed countries for several decades. One possible explanation for this rise may be that we, as a society, are simply too clean for our own good.

    The theory - known as the hygiene hypothesis - proposes that in today's modern, ultra-hygienic living conditions, children aren't being exposed to as many infections and microbes as in the past. The result is that their immune systems may not mature properly.

    In allergies, the body's natural defenses overreact to an otherwise harmless substance. A pet allergy, for example, is a physical reaction to animal dander (skin flakes), feathers, saliva, urine or feces. Signs and symptoms of pet allergies may include a rash, sneezing, sniffling, coughing or wheezing.

    Researchers believe that growing up with pets trains a child's immune system to be less reactive to allergens. When children play with pets, the animals scratch and lick them. This transfers bacteria - particularly endotoxins, which are the remains of dead bacteria - from animal to child. Scientists believe that regular exposure to endotoxins, which are also found in dirt, may help explain pets' protective health benefits.

    Over the decades, studies published in the November 1989 issue of BMJ (The British Medical Journal), the February 1999 issue of The Lancet and the August 2000 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine have shown that infants who regularly are exposed to bacteria and other microbes - whether from other children or from living on a farm or with pets - seem less likely to develop allergies than children who are raised in isolation or in superclean environments."

    -

  • TD
    TD

    --Sounds like a JW treatise on the dangers of transfusion. Pets are as clean as you keep them.

  • White Dove
    White Dove

    That sounds like the same principle as breast feeding protecting children against food allergies. It works both ways. This is interesting.

    I used allergy drops that slowly desensitized me from the flora around "Greenland." It worked very well.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit