On one hand where clean drinking water is consider a basic need for survival, recent studies have revealed that while clean water reduces the of chances of catching many deadly diseases, it can increase the risk of childhood asthma.
Salty foods you never knew could cause asthma
A study by researchers from University of British Columbia in Canada has revealed that there could be a link between the risk of asthma and the cleanliness of the environment.
According to the findings, the researchers identified four types of gut bacteria present in 100 Canadian children. The presence of these bacteria in the first 100 days of their life, seem to prevent asthma.
"Those that had access to good, clean water had much higher asthma rates and we think it is because they were deprived of the beneficial microbes," said Finlay, a microbiologist. "That was a surprise because we tend to think that clean is good, but we realise that we actually need some dirt in the world to help protect you," he added
But in a later research, Finlay and his colleagues found that a type of yeast called Pichia if present in the early days of life, were much more capable of causing asthama.
Finlay's colleagues will now re-examine the Canadian samples and look for the presence of yeast in the gut of infants.
This research was done in collaboration with Marie-Claire Arrieta, a former UBC postdoctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor at the University of Calgary and Philip Cooper, a professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
