Millions of people suffer chronic allergies from everything from dust, weeds, grasses and trees to animal dander, molds and foods. There are many ways to combat these allergies once they start, but little is known about how to stop them at the source. Until now.
Researchers at Linkoping University in Sweden have shown that a wide variety of bacteria in your gut can protect you against developing allergies. And it starts when we are very young.
These researchers concluded that the composition of the gut flora during the first few weeks of life is critical to the immune system’s development. In the absence of sufficient stimuli from many different bacteria, the immune system may overreact against harmless antigens in the environment, such as foods, dust mites and pollen. This means that parents may be able to greatly reduce the likelihood of their children developing allergies later in life by insuring a diverse flora environment when they are young.
