Stomach Bug May Protect Against Asthma

Ivanhoe Newswire
Wednesday, July 16, 2008; 4:15 AM

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Something missing from our stomachs may be the reason behind the recent rise asthma cases.

Researchers from New York University Langone Medical Center found Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) – a bacterium that lives in the stomach – may cause peptic ulcers and stomach cancer, but kids between the ages of three and 13 are nearly 59 percent less likely to have asthma if they carry the bug. Teens who carry H. pylori are 40 percent less likely to have hay fever and other allergies such as eczema or rash.

The study looked at 7,412 children from 1999 to 2000. Results show only 5.4 percent of those born in the 1990s were positive for H. pylori. More than 11 percent of the participants under ten years of age had received an antibiotic in the month before the survey.

For the past 50 years asthma cases have been going up steadily while H. pylori – once nearly universal in humans – has been slowly disappearing from developed countries over the past century. Researchers say its decline is because of the increased use of antibiotics that kill off bacteria. Not being exposed to the bacteria may make the immune system more sensitive to allergens.

"There's a growing body of data that says that early life use of antibiotics increases risk of asthma, and parents and doctors are using antibiotics like water," study co-author, Martin J. Blaser, M.D., NYU Langone Medical Center, was quoted as saying. "The disappearance of an organism that's been in the stomach forever and is dominant is likely to have consequences. The consequences may be both good – less likelihood of gastric cancer and ulcers later in life – and bad: more asthma early in life."

SOURCE: The Journal of Infectious Diseases, published online July 15, 2008

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