By Diana Duel
A new study reveals that human “parents” have more in common with their pets than with their own children when it comes to sharing microbes, according to Rob Knight, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder.
After Knight and his colleagues collected bacteria samples from 60 families, including 17 households with children, involving 159 people and 36 dogs in total by swabbing their tongues, foreheads, feces, palms and paws, they found that “people and their household pets can greatly influence the microbes that live in the body. Sharing surfaces (countertops, doorknobs, you name it) and breathing the same indoor air seems to make it much easier for family members to swap skin microbes than tongue or gut bacteria in a home, the scientists say. And pets are part of the exchange,” he stated.
