VIDEO – HEALTH IS WEALTH –
July 25, 2025 – Amish children showed extremely low allergy and asthma rates. This finding suggested that genetics isn’t the answer. Something else is at play here. So the researchers looked at how children in each group interacted with their environment. They found a major difference.
When scientists analyzed dust samples from Amish and Hutterite homes, they discovered that Amish house dust had nearly seven times more microbes. To test whether this made a difference, they exposed mice to each type of dust. Mice that inhaled Amish dust showed much less inflammation in their airways when exposed to allergens.
Whereas mice exposed to Hutterite dust didn’t get that benefit. This strongly suggested that early, regular exposure to certain farm microbes trained the immune system of Amish kids to react calmly instead of aggressively to substances like pollen or food. This phenomenon is called the farm effect.
