An article recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/07/14/1005963107.full.pdf+html) shows an intriguing link between diet and the risk of asthma, allergies and other inflammatory diseases.

The study, although of a small size, focussed on microbial composition in the gut, which depends greatly on different dietary habits.  The study compared the stomach bacteria of children fed a sugary, fat-laden Western diet with children in Africa fed a fibre-rich diet mainly of millet, legumes and other vegetables.

Presenting cases of inflammatory disease have grown rapidly in the Western world in the last decades, although the same trend has not been seen in developing, or Third world countries.  So researchers have been looking into what may be causing the problems in the Western world.

The article indicates that diet may well be behind the increase.  Although bacterial differences were sparse in infants (who were all mainly breast-fed), significant differences were noted in older children.  In the African population a diverse mix of bacteria were present, although there was far less variation in the Western group.

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