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Gut bugs could avert asthma

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Gut bugs could avert asthma

Acquiring four types of gut bacteria by three months of age seems to reduce the risk of developing asthma in later life, according to new results from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study.

Researchers used faecal samples to examine the gut microbiota of 319 children. Children at risk of asthma based on skin prick testing, clinical wheeze and the Asthma Predictive Index showed a significant decrease in the relative abundance of four bacterial genera (Lachnospira, Veillonella, Faecalibacterium and Rothia) during the first 100 days of life. Most babies naturally acquire these bacteria from their environments.

Certain gut bacteria could lower asthma risk

Fewer differences in levels of these bacteria were found among one-year-old children, suggesting that the first three months are critical for the developing immune system. Children with decreases in the four bacteria also showed reduced levels of acetate in their faeces and abnormal levels of certain metabolites. For example, the urine of three-month-old children with atopy and wheeze showed a 14-fold increase in urobilinogen, a metabolite produced by gut bacteria.

Alterations in urinary metabolites may offer a marker of adverse changes in the gut bacteria in early infancy that reflect an increased risk of asthma. The authors inoculated germ-free mice with the four types of bacteria. Airway inflammation was less marked when their offspring reached adulthood, demonstrating “a causal role” for these bacteria in “averting asthma development”, the authors suggest.

“This research supports the hygiene hypothesis that we’re making our environment too clean. It shows that gut bacteria play a role in asthma, but it is early in life when the baby’s immune system is being established,” said lead researcher Brett Finlay, Peter Wall distinguished professor at the University of British Columbia.

The researchers believe that their findings may help in the development of probiotics that prevent asthma and a test that predicts children at risk of asthma. In the meantime, further studies with a larger number of children need to confirm these findings.

(Science Translational Medicine 2015; 7:307ra152).

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