A preventive treatment
It may even be possible to inoculate children against allergies by exposing them to probiotics in utero, while their mothers are still pregnant, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and published in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy in 2008.
The researchers assigned 1,223 women to take a daily dose of either a probiotic or a placebo starting in the eighth month of pregnancy. All participants or their partners had a history of allergies, thereby classifying their children as "predisposed" to developing allergies. Starting at birth and for the first six months of life, 925 infants were also assigned to take the same probiotic or placebo dose that their mothers had received during pregnancy.
The researchers examined the children for allergies at three, six and 24 months of age. They found that among children who had been treated with probiotics, levels of inflammation-related chemicals were 50 percent higher, indicating a healthier immune response and a lower risk of allergies. In addition, children who had taken probiotics were 30 percent less likely to develop atopic eczema than children who had been treated with the placebo.
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