Tuesday, 2 September 2014



GUT BACTERIA MAY PROTECT AGAINST ALLERGIES
15 million Americans and every 13th child suffer from a food allergy. Just recently a story in Science Daily revealed the study about gut bacteria (See Fig 1), which may be a solution to prevent food allergies. To test how this works, Nagler’s science team tested two groups of mice. One group was raised in a sterile environment, while the other one was exposed to antibiotics. Both groups of mice showed higher level immune responses to food allergies then mice with regular gut bacteria. (See Fig 2)


The plan is to develop a new probiotic and put it in a pill to treat allergies. “The researchers have filed a patent to develop ways to prevent food allergies, and they plan to work with biotechnology companies to engineer such probiotic therapies.” –Charles Choi, CBS News. 


Even though the causes of food allergies are still unknown, previous studies say that genetics, and the environment might have a role in this. "This kind of change in such a short time frame must be explained by something in the environment," Nagler told Live Science.

This is truly an amazing discovery which can change the quality of many people’s lives. But will this have the same effect when used on people? Will it be as successful? In my opinion there is a great chance that soon we will have a good medication for preventing food allergies.

5 comments:

  1. -Good use of highlighting important texts.
    -Good use of pictures.
    -Concise and explains it clearly.
    -Interesting topic

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  2. Nice job Kiki. I like how you linked your data with the photos and how you highlighted the most important parts of the text. I looking for to this medication!!! :)

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  3. I liked your blog post because you used alot of quotes and you sited your source well. You also explained what the plan was and what was going to happen. Do you think this could actually work and why?

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  4. You chose a very interesting topic to write about and I like how you were able to explain clearly what you researched and how it works. Something you did really well and which I really liked was that you added quotes from the source you used. Good Job! :)

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  5. This is a really good story. It is clear that the story has a real application - perhaps you could point Nik in the right direction! I have to disagree with the others. I think your highlighting is distracting and you should be consistent with you fonts and text sizes. Overall well done!

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