Could a common cause underlie four of the most common allergies? And if so, could addressing it help prevent people from developing them altogether?
A new study by researchers from UBC and B.C. Children’s Hospital suggests that might just be the case.
The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, found a link between imbalanced gut microbiome — that is, the bacteria living in our digestive systems — and eczema, asthma, food allergies and hay fever.
“What we did was study all these allergic diseases that might seem on the surface to be quite different. Asthma is a disease of the lungs, but then we also had children who had food allergy, which is quite different,” Dr. Stuart Turvey, who led the research, told Global News.
“What we’ve shown and we know through research is that all of these diseases share a common theme and that is that the immune system is confused, and that’s what’s causing these diseases — and the advance we’ve made is showing that missing bacteria seem to lie at the heart of all of these four disease.”
The discovery is part of the CHILD Cohort Study, a massive research project that’s been underway for 15 years involving thousands of children from Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto.
Researchers looked at the clinical assessments from 1,115 kids who were tracked from birth to age five — about half of whom were diagnosed with one or more allergic diseases.
They then examined the bacteria from their digestive systems collected through stool samples, which revealed a common bacterial signature linked to the development of the four allergic conditions by age five.
“Using the understanding of how the microbiota should be forming within an infant, we realized that babies that would go on to develop a number of different allergies actually had what we found to be delayed maturation,” explained Dr. Charisse Petersen, co-senior study author.
“So that microbiota, that community of beneficial bacteria, wasn’t forming as quickly as (in) children who wouldn’t get those allergies.”
The researchers say there are a multitude of factors that go into how a infant’s gut microbiome develops, ranging from what they eat to how they are delivered, as well as exposure to antibiotics.
Turvey said children treated with antibiotics in their first year of life were more likely to develop allergic disorders, whereas infants who ere breast fed in their first six months were less likely to develop them.
Turvey said the research could hold important clues for future treatments to prevent or reduce the impacts of allergies.
“We now know that some of those (bacteria) are missing and we can look at ways to safely reintroduce those to communities, to mothers, to kids,” he said.
“It sets the scene for strategies where we might be able to prevent all four diseases developing in the first place.”