It's known that microbial exposures early in life affect the composition of the gut microbiome, and gut health in turn affects the risk of developing allergic disease.
When governments implemented lockdowns in response to COVID 19, researchers in Europe hypothesized that one consequence might be an increase in allergic disease in children because of reduced microbial exposure.
So, they began a study to track infants over time, but what they found was the opposite of their prediction. Infants born during the lockdowns had less
incidence of allergic disease than pre-pandemic babies.
They had assumed that fewer interactions with people outside the home and reduced exposure to the environment would have a detrimental affect, but they found that for the beneficial Bifidobacterium, which is transmitted to infants via their mother at birth, there was an increased relative abundance.
They attributed this outcome and the associated reduction in allergic disease incidence to more breastfeeding and fewer antibiotic treatments among infants born during lockdowns.
Breastfeeding increased evidently due to the fact that infants were no longer in day care. And infants' gut microbiomes weren't being nuked with antibiotic treatments evidently due to the fact that people were staying home instead of going in to see a doctor.
In sum, because babies weren't being dropped off a day care, they were breastfed more, and because they weren't being taken in to see doctors, they weren't being given antibiotics; and the outcome was a lower risk of developing allergies compared to babies born before the pandemic.
This study reinforces my own conclusion, arrived at both through personal experience and extensive research into the area of health, that one of the best ways to stay healthy is to avoid seeing doctors!
(Just sayin'. Don't take it as medical advice, and draw your own conclusion. I'm not saying it's never necessary or a good idea to see a doctor, just that it's very often unnecessary.)
The importance of gut health doesn't end in childhood, of course. I've had my own experience in adulthood of dealing with debilitating symptoms that I was able to successfully resolve after diagnosing myself -- no thanks to the less-than-useless doctors I saw -- with leaky gut (a.k.a. intestinal hyperpermeability).
There is a free online educational opportunity going on right now called Gut Rescue Summit. It started yesterday, but there is still plenty of information yet to come, so check it out:
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