What’s the best strategy to avoid food allergies in young children? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Early exposure to peanut is credited with reducing the development of peanut allergy in young children, a recent study concludes, but Robert Wood, a childhood allergy expert at Johns Hopkins, says the rate of food allergies among children is increasing along with other types of allergic reactions, and one reason may be their lack of exposure to many microorganisms.

Wood: It's actually very healthy to get exposed to wide range of germs, bacteria, viruses maybe parasites. If your immune system has a very rich exposure to healthy organisms in the environment that may help prevent food allergy. If your microbiome, which refers to the bacteria for the most part that are in your gut, now we know it's the microbiome of the skin, the respiratory tract,of the sinus cavities. The more healthier microbiome the less likely you are to develop allergic disease, virtually every immune related disease.   :33

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.