At-risk babies who receive a daily dose of probiotics (harmless bacteria normally found in the intestinal flora) from six weeks prior to birth onwards, do not develop eczema as often as at-risk babies who are not administered probiotics. These are the first preliminary results from the study entitled: Probiotics AND Allergy (PANDA) conducted by Titia Niers, doctor and researcher.
Asthma and allergies are occurring more and more frequently in children living in Western countries. “Children particularly have an increased risk of developing symptoms of asthma or allergies when these run in the family,” Titia Niers relates. “Up until now we have only had drugs to help against symptoms of asthma or allergy. We can’t actually cure the disease(s) itself. That's why it is important to study whether we can prevent asthma and allergies developing in children in a safe and uncomplicated way.”
PANDA study
In the PANDA study, Niers looks at whether or not harmless bacteria known as probiotics can positively influence the immune system. “From studies in animals, we know that intestinal flora is important for the development of the immune system. The body has to learn to differentiate between harmful and harmless substances. Harmful substances that enter the body have to be rejected. However, this is not necessary for harmless substances. Over time, the body accepts them and tolerance levels are built up.
Mice without intestinal flora develop allergy more easily due to the absence of tolerance levels. When the intestinal flora is artificially restored, the development of tolerance levels returns and the allergy disappears.” The artificial restoration of intestinal flora occurs when probiotics are administered. For the study, Niers put together a mixture of three different probiotics that was based on laboratory tests.
Promising preliminary results
From a period of six weeks prior to birth up to the age of 1 year, half of the at-risk babies received probiotics once a day. The other half received a placebo, i.e. no probiotics. The parents all recorded any symptoms that their child had in a weekly diary. The first positive indications can be seen at the age of three months: the babies who received probiotics appeared to develop less eczema than the babies from the placebo group.
Further analysis
Niers continues: “These results show that the administration of probiotics seems to work. But how does this happen? We are now going to perform further analysis by studying the intestinal flora of both groups. For the first four weeks of their child’s life, the parents collected weekly samples of faeces from the babies. They took another sample when the child was three months old. We are now in the process of studying these samples in the laboratory.” The results will be published here as soon as they are known.
Whether the positive trend found in the probiotics group continues should be known by the end of 2007. This will be the point at which the results for the children at one year of age are known.