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Comment by madpen | Hacker News Reader

Makes a lot of sense. I’m glad I grew up with dogs - they surely exposed me to all sorts of things as a child that helped build my immune system. Single data point, but I’m allergy free, no asthma etc.

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I grew up in a super "dirty" household. Shoes in the house, dog, no house cleaners, the whole family did our own gardening and lawn care, etc. No allergies. In fact allergies were practically unheard of in that place and time.

I did too, but have allergies.

Maybe single data points aren't useful for the discussion.

> Shoes in the house, dog, no house cleaners, the whole family did our own gardening and lawn care

That's just a normal upbringing.

I grew up in a clean household, no shoes indoors, fastidious mother wiping down every surface, also allergy free.

So are all of my siblings though, so there might be more of a genetic component to this.

I grew up on almost a farm smack next to a nature park, was very outdoorsy kid and have all kinds of allergies ever since puberty onset.

Yeah I don't think allergies depend on external factors that much. My mother and I have pretty equivalent childhoods even down to same locations and she's wrecked with allergies and I have none, yet my health is worse overall (despite me having a healthier lifestyle).

While I believe some exposure helps build resistance ultimately your overall health will be influenced by stuff beyond your control AND your lifestyle/activities combined.

What? Shoes in the house is a bad thing? Isn't it worse to go with no shoes because you are adding sweat and maybe fungi to the mix?

I always lived in very clean houses and no one of us ever went barefoot. (We did change shoes for slippers or equivalent rather quickly though).

Anecdotally having lived in both types of houses, sweeping and mopping is much more frequent in the house that allows shoes inside.

Dose creates a poison - Paracelsus (translated from Polish). I mean if someone is allergic on dogs it will probably not heal them from allergy. However I myself had allergy on dog's and cat's fur, but for some reason my parents bought me a dog, and I guess it was not the hardest allergy, because I grew up with it and now I have no allergies on dog's fur...

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