Can Pets Improve Your Immune System?

For as obsessed with cleanliness as we are in the United States, oftentimes for good reason, other times out of an overactive sense of paranoia, there is a harsh reality a lot of us degenerate hand sanitizer users must confront: some microbes are good, actually. Like how science has only somewhat recently learned that the microbes in your gut may be the key to unlocking a whole new you. Science is also discovering that one constant source of dirt and grime in our lives may be quietly boosting our immune systems: our pets.

As a report from the BBC’s David Cox explained, it all started with the Amish, whose children have significantly lower rates of asthma, allergies, and eczema compared to their similarly rural and tech-savvier cousins, the Hutterites. Both groups eat homegrown food, and s