Healing From Food Allergies

A study,¹ published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has discovered not only a possible cause of food allergies but a probable cure. The team found that young children overexposed to antibiotics were at greater risk of developing food allergies. They were able to identify a naturally occurring bacteria in the human gut that keeps people from developing food allergies. The bacteria, called Clostridia, is a big class of bacteria which includes hundreds of members. This strain of bacteria diminishes with frequent antibiotic use at a young age — making children more susceptible to food allergies later in life. Maci was given antibiotics every year when she would get her yearly sinus infection, and now I can see how this affected her.

The research team administered antibiotics to young mice² and found they were more likely to develop peanut allergies than the control group. Then they were given this special and diverse group of bacteria called Clostridia. This is a good bacteria that naturally occurs in mammalian guts — and like magic, the mice's sensitivity went away. They were no longer allergic.

I got chills when I first read this study and felt myself well up inside and I shouted out loud, "I KNEW IT!" even though nobody was around to hear me. I believe that cultured foods are so effective at healing the gut because they contain many different strains of good bacteria and good yeasts and they are predigested foods that help us digest the foods we eat with them. The special group of super cultured foods called the Trilogy (kefir, kombucha and cultured veggies) were the ones I used to heal my daughter and help many others. They have many different strains of bacteria and will colonize the gut and repair it.

Another study done on peanut allergies in children was published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. This study was done on children who had peanut allergies and were given a probiotic strain of bacteria that over time eliminated their peanut allergies.³ A follow-up study on the children done four years later confirmed the findings that they were still free of peanut allergies.

The use of probiotics for food allergies is growing and even being used to treat babies and pregnant women. Supplementing with probiotics, specifically B. lactis, Lactobacillus acidophilus, and Lactobacillus rhamnosus has been found to help prevent food allergies in infants whose families have a predisposition to food allergies. (These species are in milk kefir as well.)^{4, 5}

Food allergies rose a whopping 50% between 1997 and 2011,⁶ and I saw this in my own home. My daughter, who had no previous food allergies, had suddenly developed them and I wanted to know why. The reasons include:

• A rise in antibiotic use that kills the bacteria we need to digest our foods.
• A diet devoid of fiber (prebiotics) and nutrients to feed the microbiome.
• A lack of probiotic foods in our diet has wreaked havoc on our 10 trillion microbes that keep us well.
• Chemicals that flood our environment that disrupt our inner flora.
  (A common ingredient in antibacterial soaps called Triclosan⁷ has been linked to food allergens. The FDA  issued a final rule establishing that over-the-counter consumer antiseptic wash products containing the active ingredients Triclosan can no longer be marketed.)⁸

These common occurrences in everyday life have unknowingly led to a decline in gut bacteria and we have suffered the consequences.