Healthy infants harbor intestinal bacteria that protect against food allergy.

ABSTRACT: There has been a striking generational increase in life-threatening food allergies in Westernized societies^1,2. One hypothesis to explain this rising prevalence is that twenty-first century lifestyle practices, including misuse of antibiotics, dietary changes, and higher rates of Caesarean birth and formula feeding have altered intestinal bacterial communities; early-life alterations may be particularly detrimental^3,4. To better understand how commensal bacteria regulate food allergy in humans, we colonized germ-free mice with feces from healthy or cow's milk allergic (CMA) infants⁵. We found that germ-free mice colonized with bacteria from healthy, but not CMA, infants were protected against anaphylactic responses to a cow's milk allergen. Differences in b

SUBMITTER: Feehley T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6408964 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature