The Role of Probiotics in Infants and Children with Food Allergy

According to the hygiene hypothesis, westernized and urbanized life style leads to the increase of allergic disease. This hypothesis supports the use of probiotic therapy for the prevention or treatment of food allergy. The probiotics which contains potentially beneficial microorganism have been used for the treatment of some gastrointestinal disorders and atopic disease as dietary supplements. Many results of studies support the immunologic bases of probiotics therapy. The most important mechanism is that probiotics suppress Th2-skewed immunity as the stimulation of regulatory T cell. The difficulties of diagnosis of food allergy, variable symptoms, many kinds of microorganism, diet style and non- standardized study designs are attributed to the variety and controversy of the effectiveness of probiotics in food allergy with infant and children. More studies is needed to confirm the efficacy of probiotics in infant and children with food allergy.