Over the last couple of years, there has been much debate over whether how we live our lives affects our chances of developing allergies, and what we can do to prevent this from happening. In particular, there are 2 key areas experts are interested in, which are the effects of diet, and hygiene. In this 2 part series, we will look at each in detail.
Diet
Recently, doctors have been very interested in the effects of probiotics in diet. Probiotics are harmless micro-organisms that live in our bowel. Synbiotics are a combination of probiotics and special sugars called prebiotics, which stimulate the growth of probiotics.
Medical research has shown that allergy-prone children have less probiotics in their bodies than children who suffer much less from allegies. In particular, the probiotics Lactobacillus GG and Lactobacillus rhamnosus have been shown to improve eczema symptoms in young children, and probiotics have shown that they can reduce eczema attacks. For some reason that researchers have not yet fathomed, probiotics don’t appear to help asthma sufferers, but may assist the overall immune system. They may reduce general allergies.
For maximum benefit, pregnant women should take probiotics for the last 12 to 16 weeks of pregnancy and supplement the new born’s diet with probiotics and prebiotics. Caution should be taken if the child has a cow’s milk allergy, as cow’s milk residues may be present in the probiotic supplements, and if you have any doubt, you should seek advice from a medical professional.