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Antibiotics use linked to allergies
After years of inhalers and decongestant prescriptions,
the cause of your allergies may not be the pollen
in the air after all, but the contents of your
gut.
Antibiotics can cause changes in the human digestive
system that, coupled with an unhealthy diet, could
be responsible for recent increases in the development
of allergies and asthma, according to research
findings released Dec. 23 from the University
Medical Research Center.
“Antibiotics are great. They are, but there
is a price to pay, and that’s what we have
ignored”, said Gary Huffnagle, a professor
of internal medicine, microbiology and immunology.
Huffnagle, the head researcher on the project,
and Mairi Noverr, a University postdoctoral fellow,
developed a study to test their hypothesis that
antibiotics change the microflora lining —
a mixture of fungus and bacteria in the gastrointestinal
tract or the system of organs that digests food.
According to their research findings, this change
disrupts the immune system and its ability to
ignore inhaled allergens.
Noverr exposed the laboratory mice to a broad-spectrum
antibiotic, which kills a wide range of bacteria,
for five days to kill their gut bacteria. Then,
to help the mice quickly redevelop a bacterial
mix in their GI tract, they were exposed to Candida
albicans, a type of yeast normally found in the
GI tract. Two days later, the mice were exposed
to ovalbumin, an experimental allergen known to
illicit an allergic response. Comparing the mice
that received the antibiotics to those that did
not, Noverr found that the mice treated with the
antibiotic were much more sensitive to the allergen.
Now that they have found a correlation between
the GI tract the immune system, Huffnagle and
Noverr want to determine how the gut microflora
communicates with the immune system.
Noverr said that special cells called regulatory
T cells, which are generated in the GI tract,
help to maintain tolerance to allergies. Huffnagle
and Noverr believe these cells can travel to other
mucosal surfaces, such as the lungs, where they
can dampen immune response. They plan to investigate
whether or not changes in microflora influence
the development of regulatory T cells.
Their current results confirm their hypothesis
that the increase in allergies, asthma, and many
other diseases over the last 40 years in Western
industrialized societies can be credited to the
widespread use of antibiotics, Huffnagle said.
Noverr said they are interested next in studying
the effect of environmental factors, particularly
the effects of various diets on microflora and
allergies. Scientists have suggested that the
“western diet,” which is high in processed
fat and sugar is responsible for a number of health
problems. They hypothesized that today’s
modern diet does not provide the body with appropriate
nutrients to maintain a healthy mix of microflora
in the GI tract.
Huffnagle said he hopes that antibiotic prescriptions
will eventually be accompanied by supplemental
dietary instructions after the medication’s
use ends, to help rebuild a healthy mix of microflora.
Such a diet should be high in raw fruits and
vegetables, he explained, since other laboratory
results have shown that plants produce dietary
antioxidants the human body needs to fight infection.
These antioxidants, concentrated primarily in
the rind or skin of fruits and vegetables, could
help to restore the normal mix of gut microflora.
Results of the study, as well as a multitude
of anecdotal evidence also suggest that many people
who have developed allergies may be able to alleviate
their allergy symptoms simply by making dietary
changes, Huffnagle said
And, Huffnagle and Noverr succeed in determining
how microflora in the GI tract communicates with
the immune system, treatment or prevention of
allergies and inflammatory diseases may become
a reality.
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