In the old days, people tend to shy away from owning a dog or cat simply because they do not want their family to ha an allergy.  A recent study about allergies shows that people should not stay away from cat and dogs.

Researchers found that out that children exposed to animals at an early stage had a lower rate of allergies while they are growing up.

Melanie Matheson of the University of Melbourne, lead author of the study, says family pets do not need to be removed to be safe from nasal allergies.

The data collected from 8,500 adults from Europe and Australia.  Matheson and her friends focused on the group of people who grew up along with house pets or farm animals. Also, those people who suffers from runny noses, itchy eyes, and sore throats that plague nasal allergy.

In 2010, a study from the University of Cincinnati proves the linked of growing with pets and lesser allergy risk.  The research shows that owning a dog lessens the risk of developing childhood eczema.  In 2011, there is another study that shows that growing with pets reduce the risk of developing pet allergies by almost one-half.

According to the new study, one in every four respondents participated in the study say they had nasal allergies.  Most of the participants says that they have the allergy since adolescence.

Those who have the higher risk factors say they have a family history and mother got into smoking while pregnant.

The research team also found out that those children who grew up with many siblings has a lower case of nasal problem.  A child who has few siblings has a higher risk of developing nasal allergies.

Scientist say that there is a pattern between a child growing up in a farm and those who have pets before five years old.  When compared to other children who never had experience with any of the two.  The possibility of having nasal allergy later in life is higher.

Matheson claimed that the results were consistent in the 13 countries surveyed. This is despite the fact, that there were differences between pet ownership and farming between countries.

Since nasal allergies are  serious disease, the author write that exposure to pets early in their life could prevent nasal allergies.

However, the study cannot prove that exposure to pets or other children can lead to a lower risk of nasal allergies. The authors say there might be another factor that leads to a  rate of reduce nasal allergy occurrence.