Growing Up With Dog Can Boost Gut Health –Study

A new study from Sinai Health and the University of Toronto has found that exposure to dogs during childhood is linked to beneficial changes in gut bacteria, gut permeability and blood biomarkers.

The study, published in ‘Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology,’ found living with a dog between ages five and 15 is associated with a healthier gut microbiome and reduced risk of developing Crohn’s disease.

Your gut microbiome is the ecosystem of microbes that live in your intestines. Some gut bacteria are more helpful than other types.

The research shines new light on how environmental factors influence the onset of Crohn’s—an inflammatory bowel condition—and could inform future prevention strategies.

Caused by inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, Crohn’s disease can have farreaching consequences on over – all health and well-being. Its incidence among children under 10 has doubled since 1995.

For the study, researchers led by Kenneth Croitoru and Williams Turpin of Mount Sinai Hospital’s Centre for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) investigated how dozens of environmental factors impact the likelihood of developing Crohn’s as part of their overarching effort to be able to predict those at risk and potentially intervene early.

“The idea behind predicting someone’s risk of disease is that you can then also begin to understand who you might want to do something to try and prevent disease,” said Croitoru, a clinician-scientist at the LunenfeldTanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI), part of Sinai Health, and a professor of medicine and immunology at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Croitoru noted the study doesn’t reveal why living with a dog makes someone less prone to Crohn’s disease. “We have established associations between environmental factors and Crohn’s and are now trying to understand how these environmental factors affect the triggering of the disease,” said Croitoru, who is also a gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai Hospital.

The likelihood of getting Crohn’s is strongly influenced by genetics, but the environment also plays a role, said Croitoru, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

While we can’t change our genes, we can modify our surroundings and diet, for example, to potentially prevent the disease from occurring.