Childhood Asthma Linked To Lack Of Ancient Gut Bacteria
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Researchers in the US have found that childhood asthma is significantly less likely in children infected with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a bacterium that has inhabited the stomach and small intestine of humans for thousands of years. They found that children between the ages of 3 and 13 were nearly 59 per cent less likely to have asthma if they carried the bug.
The study was the work of Dr Yu Chen, assistant professor of epidemiology at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, and Dr Martin J Blaser, the Frederick H King Professor of Internal Medicine, chair of the department of medicine, and professor of microbiology at NYU Langone Medical Center. The paper is published in the July 2008 online issue of the The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
H. pylori has co-existed with humans for at least 50,000 years, and while about one quarter of the population may have it at some point in their lives, most have no symptoms, but in a small percentage it can lead to peptic ulcers and stomach cancer.
"Our findings suggest that absence of H. pylori may be one explanation for the increased risk of childhood asthma," said Chen.
"Among teens and children ages 3 to 19 years, carriers of H. pylori were 25 percent less likely to have asthma," he added.
Asthma is a serious worldwide health problem and is still rising. In the meantime, H. pylori, which was once universal in humans, is gradually disappearing in developed countries where more people use antibiotics, have cleaner water and cleaner homes.
Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2000, Chen and Blaser found that only 5.4 per cent of children born in the 1990s tested positive for H. pylori, and 11.3 per cent of the children under 10 had received an antibiotic in the previous month.
Chen and Blaser used data from 7,412 people in the NHNES survey and looked for links between H. pylori and childhood asthma.