Children with eczema have a more diverse set of bacteria in their guts than non affected children, finds a new study in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Microbiology. The types of bacteria present were also more typical of adult gut microbes than for toddlers without eczema.
Eczema is a chronic inflammation of the epidermis. The gut bacteria of children with or without eczema was examined when they were six and 18 months old. At six months all the infants had the same types of bacteria but by 18 months old the children with eczema had more of a type of bacteria normally associated with adults (Clostridium clusters IV and XIVa) while the healthy children had a greater amount of Bacteroidetes.
MSc Lotta Nylund from University of Turku, Finland, who led the project explained, "The composition of bacteria in a child's gut depends on its environment and the food it eats. You would expect that as a child's diet changes so will the bacteria present. The number of bifidobacteria naturally falls with age and in total we found 21 groups of bacteria which changed in this time period. However it is the early change towards adult-type bacteria which seems to be a risk factor for eczema."
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Notes
1. Microarray analysis reveals marked intestinal microbiota aberrancy in infants having eczema compared to healthy children in at-risk for atopic disease Lotta Nylund, Reetta Satokari, Janne Nikkilä, Mirjana Rajilic-Stojanovic, Marko Kalliomäki, Erika Isolauri, Seppo Salminen and Willem M de Vos BMC Microbiology (in press)
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BMC Microbiology