This is the kind of research that brings us a step closer to understanding the causes of this complex disease and how we can prevent it 
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Children who attend daycare or playgroups cut their risk of the most common type of childhood leukaemia by around 30%, a study estimates.
Researchers reviewed 14 studies involving nearly 20,000 children, of which 6,000 developed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).
It is thought early infections may help the body fight off the disease.
The University of California, Berkeley study will be presented to a leukaemia conference in London.
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Edward Copisarow |
Leukaemia is the most common cancer found in children in the industrialised world, affecting about one in 2,000 youngsters.
ALL accounts for more than 80% of leukaemia cases among children, and most often occurs in those aged between two and five.
Scientists believe that for most types of childhood leukaemia to develop, there must first be a genetic mutation in the womb, followed by a second trigger - such as an infection - during childhood.
However, it is also thought that contracting some childhood infections - which are often readily spread in environments such as playgroups where children are in close contact with each other - may prime the immune system against leukaemia.
Conversely, if the immune system is not challenged in early life, this is thought to raise the risk of an inappropriate response to subsequent infections, making the development of leukaemia more likely.
Source BBC NEWS
April 30th, 2008 at 6:03 am
I saw this today here in Australia, and I felt a bit better of taking my son to Child Care. It is amazing how many parents do not have their kids in Child care or they keep their kids away from socializing.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I have always taken my kids to playgroups, toddler groups and day nursery so they learn to interact with other children and also to try and get some of the earlier childhood infections like chicken pox. It worked, both had this in their early years which is much better than contracting the disease as an older child, or even as an adult