Rise in allergies linked to war on bacteria

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"Allergic diseases have reached pandemic levels," begins David Artis's new paper in Nature Medicine. Artis goes on to say that, while everyone knows allergies are caused by a combination of factors involving both nature and nurture, that knowledge doesn't help us identify what is culpable—it is not at all clear exactly what is involved, or how the relevant players promote allergic responses.

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To figure it out, Artis and his colleagues at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine treated mice with a broad range of oral antibiotics to diminish or deplete their commensal bacteria and then examined different immunological parameters. They used a combination of five different antibiotics, ranging from ampicillin, which is fairly run of the mill, to vancomycin, which is kind of a nasty one.

They found that mice treated with antibiotics had elevated levels of antibodies known to be important in allergies and asthma (IgE class antibodies). The elevated antibodies in turn increased the levels of basophils, immune cells that play a role in inflammation, both allergic and otherwise.

This connection doesn't only apply to mice but also to humans who have high levels of IgE for genetic reasons. People with genetically elevated levels of IgE are hypersusceptible to eczma and infections, and antibodies that neutralize IgE are used to treat asthma.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/03/those-bacteria-in-your-gut-can-protect-against-allergies.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

[semillama]

1. I always suspected something like this.

Even in our household, where we avoid anti-bacterial soaps, our son still ended up with a whole slew of allergies.