2023-11-22 10:10:08
Researchers at the University of British Columbia (Canada) have discovered four common pediatric allergies among children and how they develop.
Breastfeeding: exerts a protective effect. Photo: IMEO.
Allergic disorders in babies and young children are on the rise, and now scientists have discovered that the four most common pediatric allergies may have a until recently unsuspected origin, the intestine, which may give a turn to prevention and treatment of this type of health problems.
Eczema, asthma, food allergies and/or hay fever that affect children can originate from imbalances in the community of bacteria that lives in their intestine, called microbiota intestinalas researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and British Columbia Children’s Hospital (BCCH), both in Canada.
These findings on the characteristics of the microbiota intestinal and its influence on health in the first years of life, could lead to the development of new methods to predict whether a child will develop allergies and prevent these reactions from developing, according to the UBC.
“We are seeing more and more children and families seeking help in the Emergency Department due to allergies,” says Dr. Stuart Turvey, professor of Pediatrics at UBC and researcher at BCCH and co-director and author of the study.
“Hundreds of millions of children around the world suffer from allergies, including one in three children in Canada, and it is important to understand why this happens and how it can be prevented,” according to Professor Turvey.
Allergy symptoms
Each of four pediatric allergies studied, common in school age, has unique and different symptoms, but Turvey’s team wanted to find out if these ailments could have a common origin related to the composition of the children’s intestinal microbiota, according to the UBC.
Although each of these diseases “has its own list of symptoms and most researchers tend to study them individually, when we look at what is going wrong at the cellular level, these allergies actually have a lot in common,” says Dr. Charisse. Petersen, co-lead author of the study and a researcher in Dr. Turvey’s laboratory.
For their research, the scientists examined the clinical evaluations of 1,115 children, as well as their microbiotas (from stool samples collected at clinical visits), who were followed from birth to five years of age, and approximately half of the which (592) were diagnosed with one or more allergic disorders.
Pediatric allergies and imbalances in the microbiota
Analysis of stool samples revealed that children who had developed any of the four allergies on which the study focused had dysbiosis, that is, an unbalanced intestinal microbiota, which probably affected their intestinal lining and produced an inflammatory response. elevated within the intestine, according to the UBC.
“In general, our bodies tolerate the millions of bacteria that live in our intestines because they promote our health by maintaining a strong barrier between those bacteria and our immune cells and limiting the inflammatory signals that would cause those immune cells to go into action,” says researcher Courtney Hoskinson, co-author of the study.
Researchers have discovered that those children who developed an allergy before the age of five had a common failure in these intestinal “barrier mechanisms.”
Many factors can shape children’s gut microbiota, including diet, how we are born, where we live and our exposure to antibiotics, according to UBC.
The data obtained in this study suggest that “the use of antibiotics in the first year of life is more likely to cause subsequent allergic disorders, while breastfeeding during the first six months of the baby’s life has a protective effect. This occurred with all allergic disorders studied,” according to Dr. Turvey.
The researchers hope that these findings can be used to develop treatments that correct dysbiosis, and help prevent childhood allergies.
Child suffering stomach pain. Photo: IMEO.
Recommendations for parents
“This discovery, like other previous studies, reveals the importance of taking care of the microbiota, which has the ability to synthesize vitamins, fatty acids, amino acids and other substances that exert a regulatory and positive activity on our health,” says the dietitian. nutritionist Sonia Peinado, from the European Medical Institute of Obesity (IMEO).
In this sense, Peinado points out that breastfeeding favors the implantation of some types of bacteria and delays the implantation of others, having a healthy impact on the microbiota, which is why he recommends maintaining it for the first six months of life or more, instead of interrupt it early.
It also recommends to pregnant mothers eat a balanced diet, rich in fiber, fruits and vegetables and including fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut or kombucha, which will be beneficial for the biodiversity of intestinal bacteria, both for the pregnant woman and her child.
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