Can Clostridia help us defeat food allergies?

The problem of food allergies has risen in different countries. One of those is the UK.  Since 1990, the number of annual hospital admissions because of food allergy reactions has increased by 500%.

There is no cure to these diseases until now, when a team of scientist from the University of Chicago lead by Prof Nagler is working on a way to cure these allergic reactions and give the chance to eat the foods they never could.

The experiment was about using a kind of gut bacteria (Clostridia) in an experiment with two groups of mice. It was suspected that because of the lack of this particular bacteria caused by overusing antibiotics, a high fat diet, excessive hygiene and infant formula feeding.

One group of them were treated with antibiotics which caused them to  destroy Clostridia and the other wasn’t. However, both of the groups were in sterile lab conditions from their birth. These groups were exposed to peanut allergens and both of them produced antibodies. The ones without antibodies produced more of the antibodies, thus the ones with less antibodies produced more which leads us to the conclusion that gut bacteria made the allergic reaction not too strong. Also when Clostridia was present they produced a high number of signaling molecule, interleukin (IL-22). When this molecule was neutralized the level of allergen in the animals’ bloodstreams have increased.

According to the scientists the first thing you have to do is be sensitized to an allergic reaction and then input the Clostridia and let it work its magic.

Although this seams like an ideal solution to the problem Prof Kathryn Nagler says: ‘There are of course no guarantees, but this is absolutely testable as a therapeutic against a disease for which there's nothing.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2735051/Deadly-gut-bacteria-eradicate-food-allergies-researchers-reveal.html