The association of infant and mother gut microbiomes with development of allergic diseases in children: a systematic review

Abstract

Objective

It is believed that gut microbiota alteration leads to both intestinal and non-intestinal diseases in children. Since infants inherit maternal microbiota during pregnancy and lactation, recent studies suggest that changes in maternal microbiota can cause immune disorders as well. This systematic review was designed to assess the association between the child and mother’s gut microbiome and allergy development in childhood.

Data sources

In this systematic review, international databases including PubMed, Scopus, and ISI/WOS were searched until January 2023 to identify relevant studies.

Study selections

Observational studies that analyzed infant or maternal stool microbiome and their association with allergy development in children were included in this study. Data extraction and quality assessment of the included studies were independently conducted by two researchers.

Results

Of the 1694 papers evaluated, 21 studies examined neonate gut microbiome by analyzing stool samples and six studies examined maternal gut microbiota. A total of 5319 participants were included in this study. Asthma followed by eczema and dermatitis were the most common allergy disorders among children. Urbanization caused a lack of diversity in the bacterial microbiota as well as lower levels of Bifidobacterium and Lachnospira associated with a higher risk of allergy. In contrast, higher levels of Roseburia and Flavonifractor were associated with lower allergy risk.

Conclusions

This systematic review shows that gut microbiota may be associated with allergy development. Further studies are required to provide a definitive answer.

Keywords:

• Allergy
• microbiota
• asthma
• eczema
• infant

Acknowledgements

we would like to thank the all of our research team for their participation in and support of the project.

Ethics approval

This study was approved by Ethic Committee of Alborz University of Medical Sciences.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Authors’ contributions

AHM wrote the manuscript. MQ and HSE contributed to the design of the study and interpret the results. AHM and FZG were responsible for literature review and data extraction. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Availability of data and material

We would like to inform all the reviewers that our data and study materials are available upon request, by contacting our corresponding author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.