Recent research has highlighted a promising avenue for asthma management by exploring the impact of soil intake on gut microbiota and immune responses. The study, led by Mengjie Li and colleagues at Southeast University, provides important insights into how a poor clean living environment (LCLE), specifically soil, can modify gut microbiota and alleviate asthma symptoms. The research is published in the Journal of the World Allergy Organization.
Dr. Dongrui Zhou from Southeast University, who led the study, together with his team, investigated whether consumption of sterilized soil could serve as a prebiotic to attenuate inflammation in a mouse model of ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthma. The findings suggest that soil intake can significantly alter the composition of the gut microbiota and reduce the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines associated with asthma. This work is published in the Journal of the World Allergy Organization.
Asthma, a chronic respiratory disease, affects more than 300 million people worldwide. Epidemiological studies have shown that exposure to an LCLE can increase intestinal microbial diversity and protect against allergic diseases. This study aimed to explore whether ingesting sterilized soil, while incubated with airborne microbes, could modify the gut microbiota and alleviate asthma symptoms.
The researchers carried out a series of experiments using 16S rRNA gene sequencing to analyze the intestinal microbial composition and immunological parameters measured in lung and serum samples. The results showed significant differences in fecal microbiota composition between test and control mice. In particular, the test mice showed a higher abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Allobaculum, Alistipes and Lachnospiraceae UCG-001, which are known to produce health-beneficial short-chain fatty acids.
Soil intake also significantly reduced serum IL-4 and IL-9 concentrations and increased the expression of IFN-γ, which helps regulate the Th1/Th2 balance in the lungs by polarizing the immune system toward Th1, thereby alleviating OVA induction. Asthma inflammation. According to Dr. Zhou, “soil intake effectively reduced the expression of inflammatory cytokines in asthmatic mice, possibly by promoting the growth of multiple beneficial bacteria.”
Additional experiments revealed that soil ingestion promoted the growth of beneficial bacteria, which play a crucial role in maintaining intestinal health and mitigating allergic responses. The study demonstrated that soil prebiotics could be a potential therapeutic approach to control allergic asthma by improving the composition of the gut microbiota and promoting an anti-inflammatory immune response.
The study also explored the impact of various factors, such as air microbes and age, on the composition of the gut microbiota. While these factors had an effect, the influence of land consumption was more pronounced. This finding underscores the potential of soil-based interventions to modulate gut health and alleviate asthma symptoms.
In conclusion, the research provides strong evidence supporting the development of soil-based prebiotic products for the treatment of allergic asthma. Dr. Zhou emphasized the importance of these findings and stated, “The results indicated that the development of soil-based prebiotic products could be used for the treatment of allergic asthma.”
Magazine reference
Li, M., Li, N., Dong, Y., Zhang, H., Bai, Z., Zhang, R., Fei, Z., Zhu, W., Xiao, P., Sun, X., and Zhou, D. (2024). Soil ingestion modifies the intestinal microbiota and alleviates the Th2 type immune response in a mouse model of ovalbumin-induced asthma. Journal of the World Allergy Organization, 17, 100897. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.waojou.2024.100897
About the Author
Dr. Zhou Dongrui He is an associate professor at the Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Sciences at Southeast University in China. His research has focused on the impact of environmental cleanliness on gut microecology since 2007. They found that a low-cleanliness environment plays an important role in accelerating gut microbial repair and maintaining gut microecological balance. His further research found that soil in a low cleanliness environment is the key factor in maintaining intestinal microecological balance. They also discovered that ingesting soil has an important therapeutic effect in allergic diseases (allergic rhinitis, asthma, eczema, urticaria, chronic enteritis, etc.), as well as in regressive autism, tics and ADHD combined with allergic diseases.
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