Growing Up on Livestock Farm Lowers Risk of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

A new research reveals that growing up on a livestock farm drastically lowers the risk of developing the most common inflammatory bowel diseases.

Bowel cancer - also called as colorectal cancer - is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women in the United States. It begins in the large bowel and 72 percent of the bowel cancer cases develop in people who are 65 years or above. It is the second most common cancer in women after breast cancer. People with bowel cancer experience blood in stools, changed in bowel habits and unexplained bowel cancer.

Researchers at the Aarhus University found that people who have grown up on a farm with livestock, halve the risk of developing inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

"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," relates Vivi Schlunssen, Associate Professor in Public Health at Aarhus University.

The study points out that those born after 1952 and who spent the first five years of their lives on a livestock farm were better guarded against the common inflammatory bowel diseases when compared to the oldest people in the survey. 

"This leads us to believe that there is a correlation between the rise in inflammatory bowel diseases and increasing urbanisation, given that more and more children are growing up in urban settings," adds Signe Timm, PhD student at Aarhus University. "We know that development of the immune system is finalised in the first years of our lives, and we suspect that environmental influences may have a crucial effect on this development. The place where you grow up may therefore influence your risk of developing an inflammatory bowel disease later in life."

The study does not explain why the difference between growing up in modern and a rural setting has an effect on the immune system. However, the researchers assume that the body may be dependent on the exposure to a range of microorganisms to develop the healthy immune system.

Over the past century, the difference in the microbial environment between the city and the country has increased, due to which exposure to different bacteria in urban environment today is much less when compared previously. This helps explaining the finding.

The study was documented in the European Journal of Epidemiology.