A paper published this past Monday in the journal Nature Reviews Cancer suggests that children who live in sterile environments and go on to suffer from infections later in life may be at risk for developing childhood leukemia, reported CNN.
The study looked at the most common of childhood cancers, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, discovering that the onset of the disease happens in two distinctive steps. The first step is a genetic predisposition that occurs before the child is born while the second involves being born into and raised in a germ-free environment and then going on to develop infections after being exposed outside of the home. The specific conclusion that the paper drew was that children who are exposed to cleaner households during their first year of life, coupled with little interaction with children outside the home, are more likely to be diagnosed with the cancer.
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