Thumb-Sucking, Nail-Biting Kids May Have Lower Allergy Risk
Young children who suck their thumbs or bite their nails may be less likely to develop allergies later in childhood, according to a new study that spanned three decades.
Although the results do not suggest that kids should take up these habits, the findings do suggest the habits help protect against allergies that persists into adulthood, the researchers said.
"Many parents discourage these habits, and we do not have enough evidence to [advise they] change this," said Dr. Robert Hancox, an associate professor of respiratory epidemiology at the University of Otago in New Zealand. "We certainly don't recommend encouraging nail-biting or thumb-sucking, but perhaps if a child has one of these habits and [it] is difficult [for them] to stop, there is some consolation in the knowledge that it might reduce their risk of allergies ."
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In the study, the researchers pulled data from an ongoing study of more than 1,000 children born in New Zealand in 1972 or 1973. The children's parents were asked about their kids' thumb-sucking and nail-biting habits four times: when the kids were 5, 7, 9 and 11 years old. Researchers also tested the children for allergies using a skin-prick test when they were 13, and then followed up with the kids again when they were 32.
It turned out that 38 percent of the children who had sucked their thumbs or bit their nails had at least one allergy, whereas among kids who did not have these habits, 49 percent had at least one allergy. [ Got Allergies? Avoid These 7 Mistakes ]
Moreover, the link between these childhood habits and a lower risk of allergies was still present among the study participants when they were 32 years old. The link persisted even when the researchers took into account potentially confounding factors that may also affect a person's risk of allergies, such as whether their parents had allergies, whether they owned pets , whether they were breast-fed as infants and whether their parents smoked.
In addition, the researchers found that the kids who both sucked their thumbs and bit their nails at a young age were even less likely to have allergies at age 13, compared with kids who had just one of the two habits. However, this association was no longer found when the participants were 32 years old, according to the findings, published today (July 11) in the journal Pediatrics.
The new results are in line with the findings of another study, published in 2013 in the same journal, which found that children whose mothers sucked the kids' pacifiers clean had a lower risk of developing allergies. "Although the mechanism and age of exposure [to pathogens] are different, both studies suggest that the immune response and risk of allergies may be influenced by exposure to oral bacteria or other microbes," the researchers wrote in the new study. [ 7 Strategies for Outdoor Lovers with Seasonal Allergies ]
Grandma always said that eating a little dirt was healthy for you. I've certainly eaten my share. In the field, sometimes the only way to tell if a formation is silty or clayey is to take a taste. Your tongue has the most ability of any place on the body to tell texture. Since both silt and clay particles are microscopic, your tongue can tell if something is silty or clayey.
I don't advocate going out and digging up a hole and eating the dirt in it, but if some happens to get in your food-- so what? I'm like Joey on Friends. I learned early not to be too picky about what you eat in the field-- there likely isn't any thing else, and everyone needs food to survive that environment!
To me, the 5 second rule counts. And no, I don't drop food on the floor on purpose, and I'm not an unsanitary person... But, when you're out in the middle of nowhere, you eat what you've got. So what if it has a bug in it? It's protein. So what if a little drilling mud splashed onto your sandwich? It's just clay. It goes right on through...
By the way, I've always been told that thumb sucking creates buck teeth and would like to dispute that. I know for a fact that 6 generations of my family had buck teeth. You can't tell me that 6 generations of us sucked our thumbs... I had a pacifier, when I was a little kid... I think it is inherited and yet another calumny they put on mothers...
No way! I was not a thumb-sucker nor did I bite my nails and I have never had any allergies whatsoever, asthma, rashes or other such problems.
The implication is that if your child has allergies they should be encouraged to acquire those oral habits to counter the effects . Not sure if that is valid ...
To me the point is more that we are missing key clues to the ways in which allergies develop. My theory is that epigenetic mechanisms are influenced by the introduction of outside proteins, in ways which still have to be uncovered.