By
Jeremy Laurence, The Independent, London
Children
brought up in a holistic community, eschewing Western-style drugs
and vaccinations and eating a vegetarian diet, have a 40 per cent
lower risk of developing allergies such as asthma and hay fever.
The finding, from a study of almost 300 children who followed
the anthroposophic lifestyle advocated by the Swedish spiritual
leader Rudolf Steiner, adds to evidence that aspects of modern
lifestyles are to blame for the startling rise in allergies around
the world in the past 20 to 30 years.
One
in three children in industrialised countries has an allergic
disorder in what is now recognised to be a modern epidemic. Asthma,
hay fever and eczema are the commonest allergies. They have more
than doubled in recent decades but experts remain baffled by the
extent and speed of their rise. Pollution, infection and changes
to the diet have been suggested as causes but hard evidence has
been lacking. A growing body of evidence is pointing to the cleanliness
associated with modern lifestyles, which protects children from
bacteria and infection but at the same time prevents them developing
natural resistance, as the principal cause.
In
the latest study, published in The Lancet, 295 children aged 5
to 13 attending Rudolf Steiner schools near Stockholm, Sweden,
were compared with 380 children of the same age at neighbouring
schools. Tests showed the Steiner children had 38 per cent less
atopy (sensitivity to allergic triggers such as pollen or house-dust
mites) than the others. Only half the Steiner children had ever
taken antibiotics and just 18 per cent had had the MMR (measles,
mumps and rubella) vaccination compared with over 90 per cent
of children in the other schools.
Almost
two-thirds of the Steiner children ate fermented vegetables, containing
live lactobacilli also found in some yoghurts said to aid digestion,
compared with less than 5 per cent at the other schools. Dr. Johan
Alm and colleagues from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm
suggest that their finding could help to account for the recent
rapid rise in allergies. They say: ``Lifestyle factors related
to the anthroposophic way of life appear to lessen the risk of
atopic disease in childhood.
Since
that way of life involves several characteristics that were more
common in the general population some decades ago, our study may
help to explain the recent increase in atopy.'' In a commentary,
Professor David Strachan of St. George's Hospital Medical School,
London, says the Swedish study adds to evidence that allergies
are less common in people with simple lifestyles. However, he
says the value of the study is limited because it is impossible
to gauge the relative importance of the various lifestyle features
- diet, incomplete immunisation (Steiner children tend to have
vaccinations only against tetanus and polio and to have them later
than officially recommended), and restricted use of antibiotics.
The
strongest evidence shows that children in large families, exposed
to many infections at a young age, are less likely to develop
allergies than children from smaller families raised in ``cleaner''
environments. Professor Strachan says the ``hygiene hypothesis''
remains the best ``because it offers a unifying explanation for
the striking variations in prevalence of allergic disease.''
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