Farm Milk May Reduce Asthma and Allergies

Filed in archive Allergy: Research and Development , Asthma , Hay Fever , Skin Allergies on May 14, 2007

I thought I was having a deja vu when I read this headline: Farm milk may reduce asthma and allergy. It's too similar to what I've blogged almost a year ago, except where eczema is involved.

Writing in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy, Waser an co-workers report that consumption of farm milk, whether boiled or not, was associated with a reduction in the occurrence of asthma by 26 per cent, hay fever by 33 per cent, and food allergy by 58 per cent. No effect was observed for eczema.

It is still unclear what it is in raw milk that confers this protection. I am wondering, though, whether it's more of a social issue rather than nutritional. Perhaps it's just that people who are more likely to drink raw milk lead a different lifestyle than those who buy it from the grocer's, pasteurized or sterilized. If so, then it's not the milk itself, eh?