News

Farms can actually be good for your health

Posted 14/07/2014

Can growing up on a farm be good for your health? The answer may be a definitive yes if new research from Aarhus University in Denmark is to be believed. 

The team’s findings, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, indicate that spending the first few years of your childhood on a farm might play an important part in developing resistance to bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Data from individuals, born after 1952, who had spent the first five years of their life on a farm, found they were less likely to develop irritable bowel diseases compared to those who lived in a town or city.

Vivi Schl-nssen, Associate Professor in Public Health at Aarhus University, said: “It is extremely exciting that we can now see that not only allergic diseases, but also more classic inflammatory diseases appear to depend on the environment we are exposed to early in our lives.”