A bacteria that causes peptic ulcers and stomach ulcers can actually reduce children’s vulnerability to asthma by up to 59%.
Research conducted by NYU Langone Medical Centre studied 7,000 people, and found that a microbial inhabitant of the stomach called ‘helicobacter pylori’, can prevent the development of asthma in children between the ages of 3 and 13.
Professor, Yu Chen, Ph.D., co-author of the study said: “Our findings suggest that absence of H. pylori may be one explanation for the increased risk of childhood asthma. Among teens and children ages 3 to 19 years, carriers of H. pylori were 25 percent less likely to have asthma.”
The research also found that carriers of H. pylori were 40% less likely to suffer from associated allergy symptoms such as fever, eczema or rash.
Asthma affects 5.2 million people in the UK, with 1.1 million children receiving treatment. According to Asthma UK, there is a person with asthma in one in five households in the country. The rate of sufferers has risen over the decades. Reasons cited for the increase have ranged from increased pollution to over-cleanliness.
However, the influence of H. pylori has been studied for over twenty years, and longitudinal studies have revealed that the bacterium is disappearing from developed countries. Overuse of antibiotics is blamed for this.
According to Dr. Blaser, a leading authority in the study into H. pylori, the increase in asthma may be the result of immunological differences between people who have H. pylori, and those who do not. Stomachs with the bug are lined with T cells (immune cells) which means the body has better control over it’s response to foreign invaders. In the absence of these cells, a child becomes more sensitive to allergens, because the bacteria have a direct influence on how the immune system develops.
Dr. Blazer explained: “Our hypothesis is that if you have Helicobacter you have a greater population of regulatory T-cells that are setting a higher threshold for sensitization. For example, if a child doesn’t have Helicobacter and has contact with two or three cockroaches, he may get sensitized to them. But if Helicobacter is directing the immune response, then even if a child comes into contact with many cockroaches he may not get sensitized because his immune system is more tolerant.”
Dr. Blazer warned: “There’s a growing body of data that says that early life use of antibiotics increases risk of asthma, and parents and doctors are using antibiotics like water. The reality is that Helicobacter is disappearing extremely rapidly. This is a huge change in human micro-ecology. The disappearance of an organism that’s been in the stomach forever and is dominant is likely to have consequences. The consequences may be both good–less likelihood of gastric cancer and ulcers later in life–and bad: more asthma early in life.”
The study is published in the online issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
