Stimulating our immune systems

From the Just One Minute blog: Dr. Mark Holbreich, an allergist in Indianapolis, hypothesizes that

innocuous cowshed microbes, plant material and raw milk protect farming children by favorably stimulating their immune systems throughout life, particularly early on.

In Europe, the consumption of unpasteurized milk has repeatedly correlated with protection against allergic disease. In America, 80 percent of the Amish studied by Dr. Holbreich consume raw milk. In a study published earlier this year, Dr. Schaub’s group showed that European children who consumed farm milk had more of those regulatory T-cells, irrespective of whether they lived on farms. The higher the quantity of those cells, the less likely these children were to be given diagnoses of asthma. Here, finally, is something concrete to take off the farm. None of these scientists recommend that people consume raw milk; it can carry deadly pathogens. Rather, they hope to identify what’s protective in the milk and either extract it or preserve the ingredients during processing.

Tom Maguire summarizes,

Well, maybe they can find some beneficial "other ingredients". But my guess is that 99.999% of raw milk has a low load of harmless bacteria which provide useful stimulation of the immune system; the rare glass with deadly pathogens can kill you. Ooops. Our current system does not encourage a deep-pocketed retailer such as Whole Foods from underwriting that sort of lottery, and many parents would prefer not to take that particular risk.

I also guess that the Amish families in this study have a higher incidence of bizarre infectious diseases nver seen in city folk. It may well be that for society as a whole, lower asthma rates and higher (but still very low) rates of obscure barnyard diseases makes sense. But try telling that to the mother of a sick child.