Environmental allergensPrenatal exposure to a farm environment modifies atopic sensitization at birth
Section snippets
Study design and population
The PASTURE study is a prospective birth cohort study involving children from rural areas in 5 European countries: Austria, Finland, France, Germany, and Switzerland.7 Pregnant women living in these rural areas were recruited in the third trimester of pregnancy. Women who lived on family-run farms where any kind of livestock was kept were assigned to the farm group. For the reference group, women from the same rural areas but not living on a farm were recruited. Exclusion criteria were living
Results
The study population comprised 1133 newborns, 47% of them born to farm families (Fig 1). Table E1 (available in the article's Online Repository at www.jacionline.org) shows general population characteristics for the 922 (81%) farm and reference children who had complete values for both maternal and cord blood IgE and were subject to this analysis.
The specific IgE levels to the various allergens were consistently less than 3.5 IU/mL, and the 95th percentiles were less than 0.35 IU/mL. At a
Discussion
In the PASTURE birth cohort specific IgE antibodies to various allergens were detected at low levels in cord blood. Intriguingly, a clear distinction of the sensitization patterns of farm and reference children emerged.
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2022, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In PracticeCitation Excerpt :Those children who were either exposed to high allergen/low microbial-rich house dust, or low allergen/low microbial-rich house dust, were at risk for allergic sensitization or atopic wheeze by 3 years of age. This follows seminal work showing that children growing up in farming environments are less likely to develop atopic sensitization.161 Finally, those living in urban areas instead of farming environments, but who were exposed to a “farm-like” house dust microbiota at their early-life home, exhibited a significant reduction in the risk of asthma development.11
Atopy risk among school-aged children in relation to early exposures to a farm environment: A systematic review
2021, Respiratory MedicineCitation Excerpt :Of the farm-related factors, early-life and consistent contact to stables and the consumption of unpasteurized milk have been most strongly associated with decreased risk of IgE-sensitization [62]. In addition, prenatal exposure to animal sheds and hay has been reported to be inversely associated with cord blood IgE levels against seasonal allergens [59]. A variety of microbial products such as endotoxin, muramic acid, and [beta]-glucans [63–65] may play a major role in protecting from asthma and atopy.
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Supported by the European Union (research grant QLK4-CT-2001-00250).
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: M. J. Ege has received research support from the German Research Fund (DFG) TR22 and European Union Food-CT-2004-506378. R. P. Lauener has received research support from the Swiss National Research Foundation, the European Commission, and the Kuhne Foundation and has served as an expert witness in allergy diagnosis and allergy treatment litigation. A. Hyvärinen has received research support from the Finnish Academy and the European Union and has served as an expert witness in mold damage problematics litigation. D. A. Vuitton has received research support from the National French Research Agency and National Research Projects and has served as an expert witness for the European Commission and the French Research Institute for Development. J. Pekkanen has received research support from the European Union, the farmer's pension fund, and rhe government of Finland (EVO). E. von Mutius has consulting arrangements with GlaxoSmithKline, UCB, and Protectimmun and has received research support from the European Commission and the Bavarian Ministry for Environment, Health and Consumer Protection. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.
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The Protection Against Allergy Study in Rural Environments (PASTURE) study group: Gertraud Weiß, Ellen Üblagger, Claudia Humer, and Manuela Rußegger (Austria); Raija Juntunen, Reetta Tiihonen, Pekka Tiittanen, Maija-Riitta Hirvonen, Kati Huttunen, Suvi Virtanen, Timo Kauppila, Aino Nevalainen, Sami Remes, Tomi-Pekka Tuomainen, and Anne Karvonen (Finland); Marie-Laure Dalphin, Renaud Piarroux, Gabriel Reboux, Sandrine Roussel, and Bertrand Sudre (France); Susanne Schmid, Sabina Illi, Nicola Korherr, Jon Genuneit, Richard Peter, Serdar Sel, Nicole Blümer, and Petra Pfefferle (Germany); Ulrike Gehring (The Netherlands); Sondhja Bitter, Felix H. Sennhauser, Susanne Loeliger, Johanna Steinle, and Remo Frei (Switzerland).