From research Finlay said these findings need to be replicated in larger groups and in different populations. He said the researchers also want to know if all four bacteria are protective, or just one or two.
Finlay and Turvey’s team is continuing to follow the health of the first group of children, studying which go on to develop true asthma—so far, more than a third of those who developed the early signs of the disease have the full-blown version. In addition—since the microbiomes of people in various cultures are known to differ—they’re repeating the experiment in a larger, more diverse set of children, including some from Ecuador, to see whether the four strains of bacteria are universally important.