Article on allergies in the weekend paper

I jump each time I see a headline with allergies in the media, hoping that there is some real news to give us hope. This article "Rising allergies trend mystifying" in Saturday's Australian doesn't provide any earth shaking news. It reports on the increase in anaphylaxis, " 5 1/2-fold increase in the rate of Australian hospital admissions between 1994 and 2005 for food-related anaphylaxis in the under-fives" and research being done on allergy prevention.

Something that I hadn't heard is that "... we know kids with allergy problems have lower numbers of good bacteria like bifidobacteria and lactobacilli, and higher numbers of pathogenic bacteria, those that can cause disease, in their gut flora than healthy children." This was in the context of trials giving pro-biotics to mums just prior to birth and to new born babies which seems to show a reduction in allergy symptoms.