Abstract
Background: Early-life microbial exposures may influence the risk of allergies and asthma. For an infant, breast-milk is a source of millions of microbes per day, but the relevance of these microbes to child health has not been studied.
Aims: To determine whether the amount of microbes in breast-milk may reduce or increase the risk of asthma in childhood.
Methods: The concentration of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria and fungi were analyzed using quantitative PCR. The samples were collected by the mothers of 2 month old PASTURE birth cohort children from Finland, France, Germany and Switzerland. Asthma development was followed until the age of 6 years.
Results: The median total bacterial concentration in breast-milk samples was 9.5 x 104 (IQR 3.4 x 104- 2.9 x 105) cell equivalents (ce) per ml with median 2 to 1 ratio of gram-positive to gram-negative bacteria. The median fungal concentration was 155 (0 – 324) ce/ml.
High concentration of gram-negative bacteria was associated with lower life-time risk of asthma by the age of 6 years; adjusted odds ratio (above vs below median concentration) 0.4 (0.2-0.8), p<0.01. The association was stable across models adjusting for potential confounders. Maternal atopic dermatitis was associated with lower levels of gram-negative bacteria and it was the only determinant found to affect the levels of gram-negative bacteria in breast-milk.
Conclusions: Our data supports breast-milk as a considerable source of early-life microbial exposure and provides the first indication that microbes in breast-milk may affect the risk of asthma and thus have prolonged impact on child health.
Footnotes
Cite this article as: European Respiratory Journal 2018 52: Suppl. 62, OA336.
This is an ERS International Congress abstract. No full-text version is available. Further material to accompany this abstract may be available at www.ers-education.org (ERS member access only).
- Copyright ©the authors 2018