Living in the countryside, growing up with animals will help us less depressed

The living environment in childhood will greatly affect that person's personality in the future.

According to Newsweek, people who grow up on a pet farm are less likely to suffer from depression or other mental illnesses in later life. This is the result of a new scientific study that was just announced Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Germany). The reason may be that children who grow up in rural areas with pets with immune systems are more exposed to things than urban children.

Children growing up in rural areas with pets that have an immune system are exposed to more things than urban children.

There is a principle of "what does not kill you will make you stronger" has long been applied to explain children growing up with pets and in less urbanized environments are less likely to get fever Summer, asthma and allergies. One of the authors of the new study, Boulder physicist Christopher Lowry at the University of Colorado noted that he initially thought of this hypothesis - often called Hygiene Hypothesis or semi-antigen theory.

To test the hypothesis, 40 healthy and physically healthy people were asked to prepare and speak about why they thought they were suitable for their current job. After that, they were asked to perform a complicated countdown. At this time, researchers will conduct measurements to determine when they are stressed, as well as taking their blood pressure and cardiovascular indicators. Test participants will also be given a blood test to determine the level of IL-6 - an immune protein in the blood.

This is an especially important protein. Lowry said: "Depressed patients often produce more IL-6 protein in their blood with this test." If a child has high levels of IL-6 in childhood, it is also prone to depression in later life.

People who grew up in rural areas with pets had significantly lower levels of IL-6 than those who grew up in urban areas with no pets. However, this study is not yet sufficient evidence to evaluate the relationship between growing up with pets and depression. Experiments are conducted in Germany and need to be replicated in many other parts of the world. Another problem that this study has not shown is that the animal itself or the environment is an important factor affecting a child's ability to become depressed when he grows up.