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Extra-Clean Homes Might Trigger Childhood Leukaemia: Study

Children in extra-clean households are more prone to childhood leukaemia, as per a new study.

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Love to keep your home extra clean with no sign of dirt anywhere? Well, turns out impeccably clean environments might be doing more harm to your kids than good. Children in such households are more prone to childhood leukaemia (a type of blood and bone marrow cancer), as per a new study.

The study, conducted by Britain’s leading expert on leukaemia, Professor Mel Greaves, found that children, whose immune system is not exposed to microbes or bugs early in their childhood, become more vulnerable to such deadly diseases.

Their bodies don’t develop enough immunity to fight against infections. So even a small virus, causes ripples in their immunity system and creates a large number of white blood cells than required. This causes leukaemia.

Professor Mel Greaves called this discovery ‘paradox of progress in modern societies’ that impeccable cleanliness gave rise to such a disease.

The study also points towards the prospect that acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) could eventually become a preventable disease.

For this, the study suggests that children should be allowed to go outdoors more often so that they can come in contact with others who might be carrying germs. Cleaning the household moderately could also help develop their immunity system.

Professor Mel Greaves believes that the study strongly indicates that ALL has its origins in biological sources and it gets activated by a number of infections in children whose immunity hasn’t developed properly.

In such a scenario, the cases of childhood leukaemia can be prevented if dealt with early on. He suggests children should be exposed to a selection of ‘harmless bugs’ to boost their immune system.

Childhood leukaemia is also caused by genetic alteration which makes some kids more prone to this disease than others. But only one percent of such children actually develop cancer later on in their lives, as per the study.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia gets activated when children, who live in exceptionally clean households during their initial years, get exposed to certain common infections later on.

The best way to protect the children in such cases is to expose them to these infections early on in their childhood.

The study was published in the Nature Reviews Cancer journal.

(With media inputs.)

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Topics:  Cancer 

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