The randomised trial, involving a group of about 30 children, was conducted by Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne. The children, aged one to ten, were given small amounts of peanut flour, gradually building up to two grams, or the equivalent of six or seven nuts. They were also given daily doses of Lactobacillus rhamnosus, which is found in yoghurt but was given in quantities equivalent to the amount found in 44 pounds of yoghurt.

Following the treatment, about 80 per cent of the children were able to tolerate four grams of peanut protein, equivalent to about 14 peanuts. Typically, about four per cent of children would have overcome their peanut allergy during this time.

Rates of peanut allergies have dramatically increased in the past two decades, particularly in developed countries. For most sufferers, the condition is lifelong.

The abstract is here .

Very interesting and extremely hopeful.  Also, remember that name -- Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne.  We will see it appear again.

Like Autism, Peanut Allergies have increased in a dramatic and frightening way.   There is much evidence showing that vaccination might very well be causing the insidious damage we are seeing in both of these devastating conditions and clues keep pointing to the Microbiome:

The food allergy and autism communities generally seen as separate groups have more in common than they may realize.  One has only to look at the meteoric rise of both epidemics in the last 20 years to wonder if they are connected.  In fact, I contend that they are the same story with the same causes and overlapping symptoms but with different outcomes. It is as though one overwhelmed child turned left while the other turned right.....

....It seemed to happen almost overnight about 20 years ago.  Something changed suddenly at the same time in many Western countries to make scores of children terribly unwell.

•Food anaphylaxis:  severe food allergy increased abruptly in children, but just in certain Western countries including Australia (ACT), the US, Canada, and the UK.  School teachers provided eye witness accounts of the sudden surge of severely allergic children who arrived for kindergarten in the early 90s.  The timing is confirmed by hospital ER records.  UK cohort studies indicated that peanut allergy in preschoolers had doubled in just four years through the early 1990s, from about 1% to over 3%.

•Autism:  in the early 1990s, increasing reports of autism alerted the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  One startling report of a “cluster” of autism in Brick Township, New Jersey drew the attention of the CDC in 1997.[i]  Children born in the late 1980s and early 90s were most affected. A steep increase in autism was noted at this time also in the UK, Canada, and Australia.

......Increases to the vaccine schedule in many Western countries began in 1987 with the Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) vaccine.  By 1991, doctors did not hesitate to give this new conjugate vaccine to two-month-old children simultaneously with vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and polio.  This move was unprecedented.  In that year, more than 17 million doses of Hib vaccine were sold in the US alone.  In 1992, additional doses of combination vaccines were included in the schedule.  Hib was a revenue-generating “blockbuster product” according to a 1998 WHO publication.

At the same time, coverage rates for vaccination soared. Between 1993 and 1995, the Clinton administration’s Childhood Immunization Initiative provided federal funds aimed at 90% coverage of all infants. Vaccination became a requirement before entry into many preschools and daycare centers.  By 1997-98, childhood vaccination rates reached record highs.  Canada, the UK, and AU followed the American example.

In 1983, US children received 22 doses of vaccines (combined or single) for seven diseases (two months to age six). Today in the US, children receive up to 48 doses of vaccines for 14 diseases starting at birth to age six.

We are looking at cutting-edge science here and connecting the pieces, something that we do here at Age of Autism, is probably not what you will see elsewhere.

So how and why is this one bacteria strain able to do this?  From a recent and "unrelated" study:

Rather than acting directly on the gut or boosting the diversity of the microflora in subjects' guts, the Lactobacillus rhamnosus "may promote interactions" between bacterial colonies in the gut and the gut itself, the authors wrote.......This is a new idea, that some probiotics may work by affecting the overall ecosystem of the gut," said professor Claire M. Fraser, the study's senior author. "Previously we tended to think that LGG and other probiotics worked directly on the host.".....That suggests that scientists looking to harness the gut's microbiome for disease prevention and treatment should look at the microbes there as an interconnected ecosystem rather than as a series of solitary bacteria, Fraser said. Modifying the behavior of microbes already in the gut may be just as important as adding any single species to this population, she added.

This next line of research appears very relevant to our discussion as well:

Probiotics protect children, pregnant women against heavy metal poisoning   

Date:  October 7, 2014    Source:  American Society for Microbiology

Summary: Yogurt containing probiotic bacteria successfully protected children and pregnant women against heavy metal exposure in a recent study. Canadian and Tanzanian researchers created and distributed a special yogurt containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus bacteria and observed the outcomes against a control group.....Working with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Canadian and Tanzanian researchers created and distributed a special yogurt containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus bacteria and observed the outcomes against a control group....Their lab research indicated that L. rhamnosus had a great affinity for binding toxic heavy metals. Working with this knowledge, the team hypothesized that regularly consuming this probiotic strain could prevent metals from being absorbed from the diet…

.... The team found a significant protective effect of the probiotic against mercury and arsenic in the pregnant women. This is important as "reduction in these compounds in the mothers could presumably decrease negative developmental effects in their fetus and newborns," according to Dr. Reid. While the results obtained in the children studied showed benefits and lower toxin levels, the sample size and duration of treatment did not allow statistical significance.

The researchers were excited by the potential of basic foodstuffs to provide preventative protection for pregnant women worldwide. They are currently investigating lactobacilli with higher and even more specific mechanisms of sequestering mercury.

Very interesting that The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation is funding that research.

Here is more and one would wonder if there are connections here?

Using Probiotics as Vaccine Adjuvants

The power of the Microbiome continues to be investigated.  Here is a different manipulation of the Microbiome.  Is it individualized or for the “Greater Good?” –

Effect of probiotics on vaccine antibody responses in infancy--a randomized placebo-controlled double-blind trial.     

Probiotics and the immunological response to infant vaccinations: a prospective, placebo controlled pilot study  

Are vaccination models suitable to determine whether probiotics have beneficial health effects in the general population?  

Bacteria Boost Vaccine Effectiveness     

Here is where we see Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia reappear:

…Some researchers are taking a more holistic approach to vaccine adjuvants. Probiotics—beneficial, not pathogenic, microbes—have become famous recently for their ability to help influence the immune system. Though many studies focus on probiotics’ ability to stave off an overactive immune response, it turns out they can also boost the immune system.

“Probiotics have a whole range of different effects,” including enhancing immune responses, noted Paul Licciardi, an immunologist and vaccinologist at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia. A 2011 trial of live attenuated influenza vaccine, for example, showed that more patients given a 28-day course of the patented probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG produced protective antibodies to seasonal flu than patients given the vaccine alone.

And let’s stop right there.  Medicine is moving quickly into the manipulation of the Microbiome as there is a treasure trove of benefits to explore, BUT will they all be beneficial to Mankind?  Here is one study showing that to be concerning but as we all know, vaccines come with NO liability, thus safety is not always as important as their bottom line:

This line of research  then may be a warning sign.  For some reason, I picture a Jurassic Park of probiotics:

"One approach to improving the physiological robustness and stress tolerance of probiotic strains is patho-biotechnology [13,14]. Essentially, this novel approach involves the generation of "improved" probiotic strains, using stress survival systems mined from more physiologically robust pathogenic microbes [15]. The physiological versatility of pathogenic genera, oscillating between the external environment and the host, makes them a veritable treasure trove of genes that could potentially be used to improve the technological robustness of less well adapted probiotic strains …………

As the parent of a vaccine injured child who regressed into Autism, I am hopeful that the Microbiome holds the key to improving her health and her life.  At the same time, we must be vigilant that the manipulation of the Microbiome is safe and that there will not be more casualties in the WAR ON DISEASE.

 Teresa Conrick is Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.