It was revealed through these tests on mice that they were somehow protected from the disease.
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The association held “quite consistently” and was “very” statistically significant, Finlay says.
From birth babies start accumulating their own custom bacteria.
“We need to revisit our relationship with bacteria”.
Where did the story come from?
It was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, the study is the latest to mine the mysteries of the microbiome, the trillions of microbes that call the human body home.
The story was not widely covered in the media. With these results, that may begin to change.
What kind of research was this?
The second study was a laboratory experiment using mice.
While the study found a connection between gut bacteria and asthma risk in children, it did not prove cause and effect. “We know there’s communication between the gut and different sites”, he says, whether it’s skin, eyes, or lungs.
What did the research involve?
As they grow up, their microbes level out with their less-at-risk counterparts; so the study suggests that early intervention of the microbial variety could be key to keeping kids breathing easy. Those who are fed formula milk lack this too. They also looked at a sample of children with neither allergy or wheeze, to act as a comparison group. Eight of them have been diagnosed with asthma so far.
It’s still not known how these bacteria get into the gut, Franco said.
The researchers confirmed their theory with tests on mice.
By bacterial therapy, scientists refer to procedures that focus on modifying bacteria populations in people’s gut in order to fit their needs and bring them health benefits. “Without that training, the immune system becomes confused and causes inflammation in the lungs-that’s asthma“, Turvey says.
There’s apparently a link between the illness and bacteria in a baby’s gut which is passed on from mothers through breastfeeding. And that includes the four bacteria they’ve found: Faecalibacterium, Lachnospira, Veillonella, and Rothia.
Although asthma has a genetic component, there are many environmental factors that can contribute to the disease and this study furthers our knowledge of these factors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
As per the researchers, the difference was witnessed at 3 months and it was not present when the children were going to be one year old. Then, the researchers analyzed stool samples taken from all 319 infants at three months of age.
Being exposed to “good bacteria” early in life could prevent asthma developing, say Canadian scientists.
The discovery opens the door to developing probiotic treatments for infants that prevent asthma. In other studies we have seen that if a bay receives a dose of antibiotic before they turn 1 years of age, they are at a higher risk of developing asthma.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 6.8 million children in the USA now have asthma. Furthermore, the study has no clear evidence that the absence of those four bacteria species actually prevented asthma. However, the study has limitations. Antibiotics while killing the bad germs also tend to kill the good ones.
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We should also be wary of animal studies.
