Infant gut bacteria and food sensitization

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/uoaf-igb030415.php

Public Release: 4-Mar-2015
University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry

A new study from Canadian researchers at the University of Alberta and University of Manitoba is shedding new light on changes in intestinal bacteria of infants that can predict future development of food allergies or asthma.

The research, published in the February edition of the journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy and highlighted as the publication's "Editor's Choice," reveals that infants with a fewer number of different bacteria in their gut at three months of age are more likely to become sensitized to foods such as milk, egg or peanut by the time they are one year old. Infants who developed food sensitization also had altered levels of two specific types of bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae and Bacteroidaceae, compared to infants who didn't.

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