Mechanisms of allergy and clinical immunologyReduced diversity of the intestinal microbiota during infancy is associated with increased risk of allergic disease at school age
Section snippets
Methods
The study is reported in accordance with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guidelines for reporting observational epidemiologic studies.9
Results
Four hundred eleven infants were enrolled at 1 month of age. Cultures from fecal samples were successful in 346 neonates at 1 month and 325 infants at 12 months. DGGE PCR was completed in 300 children at 1 month and 301 children at 12 months, and 253 were completed at both time points. Baseline characteristics for the main cohort, the 253-member subgroup with complete data on DGGE PCR data, and the excluded population are compared in Table E1 (available in this article's Online Repository at //www.jacionline.org
Principal findings
Reduced bacterial diversity in the infant's intestinal flora increased the risk of allergic sensitization, allergic rhinitis, and peripheral blood eosinophilia but was not associated with the risk of asthma or atopic dermatitis during the first 6 years of life. Although the causal direction of these associations between the bacterial diversity of the intestinal flora and the development of atopic disease cannot be determined, the findings support the general hypothesis that imbalance of the
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N. L. was supported by a scholarship kindly given by the Chinese State. Copenhagen Prospective Study on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC) is funded by private and public research funds, all listed on www.copsac.com. The Lundbeck Foundation, the Pharmacy Foundation of 1991, the Augustinus Foundation, the Danish Medical Research Council, and the Danish Pediatric Asthma Centre provide core support for COPSAC.
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: H. Bisgaard has been a lecturer for AstraZeneca and Merck; has consultant arrangements with Merck and Chiesi; and has provided legal consultation/expert witness testimony for the European Medicines Agency in cases related to the guidelines on pediatric studies for documenting asthma drugs. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.