Good guys in the gut

Research indicates that dietary supplementation with probiotics may help children to strengthen natural defences against allergy EVIDENCE is mounting that the development of allergies in both children and adults is increasingly wide spread. The World Health Organisation states that half of the world's population could be affected by allergies by 2010. The fact that more children today suffer from allergies is the subject of considerable speculation. Some 15 to 20 percent of children worldwide are today affected by eczema, a proportion that continues to increase in Western and Asian countries in particular. One possible explanation for the trend appeared in the British Medical Journal in 1989 ?David Strachan's now widely recognised "hygiene hypothesis". This suggests that the rise of allergic complaints in industrialised countries is due to the reduced exposure to infections. In the years since then, subsequent investigations of the hypothesis have confirmed that various immunological and autoimmune diseases are, indeed, much less common in the developing world. A number of studies have pointed to Lactobacilli as organisms that perhaps play a role in the maturation of the immune system. In 1997, a team of researchers based at the University of Tartu in Estonia published findings that showed a higher presence of these probiotic bacteria in the faeces of one-year- old infants in Estonia, where the prevalence of allergy is low, than in the faeces of Swedish infants, where allergy is more common. These and similar findings provided the basis for investigating the influence of the Lactobacillus rhamnosus strain HN001, sold by Danisco as HOWARU?Rhamnosus, on juvenile eczema. Moreover, a recent clinical study from Turku University in Finland has demonstrated that dietary supplementation with probiotic cultures may relieve the symptoms of birch pollen allergy. Convincing findings The two-year trial of HOWARU Rhamnosus was conducted by the University of Otago's Wellington School of Medicine and Auckland University in New Zealand, with funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the multinational dairy company Fonterra. In all, 446 pregnant women participated in the trial, each receiving the special Rhamnosus strain, another probiotic or a placebo during the last five weeks of their pregnancies and for six months after birth if they were breastfeeding. Their children ?all considered at high risk of inheriting eczema due to their family history ?received the same daily supplement from birth to two years of age. At the end of 2008, the research team published the study's interesting results. HOWARU?Rhamnosus not only reduced the occurrence of eczema, it also reduced the severity of symptoms in those infants who, by the age of two, had contracted eczema. "The reason for this is that the beneficial effects of probiotics vary depending on which strains are used. As yet, no one has done a trial with two and found such a strong signal of the effectiveness of one of those strains," says Professor Julian Crane from the University of Otago. 'This is a promising first step towards developing a probiotic alternative to traditional antihistamine treatments, which can give side effects such as drowsiness and dry mouth' What makes the study particularly significant is that it used two probiotics. The results proved that only one reduced the incidence of eczema, whilst the other had no more effect than the placebo. "This breakthrough result contributes to the already substantial scientific evidence on the positive effects of HOWARU Rhamnosus in improving immune responses and natural defences," Fabienne Saadane-Oaks, president of Danisco BioActives, adds. Resistance improved The substantial scientific evidence includes a clinical study conducted in Finland. Here, children betEntrainement Nike