Allergy Study on ‘Dirty’ Mice tagged posts

The notion that some level of microbial exposure might reduce our risk of developing allergies has arisen over the last few decades and has been termed the hygiene hypothesis.

Now, an article published in Science Immunology by researchers from Karolinska Institutet challenges this hypothesis by showing that mice with high infectious exposures from birth have the same, if not an even greater ability to develop allergic immune responses than “clean” laboratory mice.

How microbes may prevent allergy has been a topic of great interest in recent times. Studies have suggested that certain infections might reduce the production of inflammatory antibodies to allergens and alter the behavior of T cells involved in allergies...