Want to Fight Allergies? Get a Dirty Dog
Comstock/Stock byte/Thinkstock Mediator of microbes. A mouse study suggests dust from dogs affects gut bacteria, which in turn may protect against allergies A dog in the house is more than just good company. There’s increasing evidence that exposure to dogs and livestock early in life can lessen the chances of infants later developing allergies and asthma. Now, researchers have traced this beneficial health effect to a microbe living in the gut. Their study, in mice, suggests that supplementing an infant’s diet with the right mix of bacteria might help prevent allergies—even without a pet pooch. "This paper elegantly illustrates how an environmental exposure protects against an allergic response by mediating the gut [bacteria]," says John Penders, a molecular epidemiologist at the Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, who was not involved with the work. "Studies like this provide new leads” about how one might manipulate the microbes in the g