No one knows why allergies like hay fever and eczema have become more common in many industrialized countries. But some researchers may have an idea. Their research seems to support the “Hygiene Hypothesis.”
Could Early Antibiotics Increase the Likelihood of Allergies and Eczema?
An analysis of 22 studies conducted over five decades sheds some light on recent increases in allergies and eczema. Doctors have been enthusiastically prescribing antibiotics to children for ear infections, acne and other common conditions without understanding that this might change the ecology of the digestive tract. These bacteria influence the development of our immune system.
Children Who Get More Antibiotics Are More Likely to Develop Allergies:
Researchers in the Netherlands linked early use of antibiotics to a greater risk of eczema and hay fever. The more often young children received a prescription for antibiotics the more likely they were to have allergies later in life. Such associations cannot prove causation, but we are learning that disrupting the microbiome of the digestive tract may have unforeseen consequences.
Since pediatricians are now striving to reduce antibiotic prescribing so as not to increase antibiotic resistance in the germs that make kids sick, there may be data in a few years to show whether this tactic also helps lower the probability of eczema or hay fever as the youngster grows up.
This research was presented Tuesday, September 6, 2016, at the European Respiratory Society annual meeting in London
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