Published in BioMed Central’s open access journal, BMC Microbiology, the new study looked at the gut bacteria of children at six months of age and 18 months old. Some of the children in the study had eczema, and others did not. When comparing the gut bacteria of the children at six months of age, researchers did not find any difference. However, when they reexamined them at 18 months of age, the children with eczema had more the bacteria known as Clostridium clusters IV and XIVa – a bacteria that is generally linked to the guts of adults. The children who did not have eczema had higher quantities of Bacteroidetes.
“The composition of bacteria in a child’s gut depends on its environment and the food it eats,” Lotta Nylund, MSc, from University of Turku, Finland told Medical News Today. “You would expect that as a child’s diet changes, so will the bacteria present. The number of bifidobacteria naturally falls with the age and in total, we found 21 groups of bacteria which changed in this time period. However, it is the early change towards adult-type bacteria which seems to be a risk factor for eczema.”
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