A study by scientists at Boston Children's Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, published today in Nature Medicine, makes a strong case that the national epidemic of food allergy is caused by the absence of certain beneficial bacteria in the human gut. 'The loss of these bacteria acts as a switch that makes children susceptible to food allergy,' says Talal Chatila, MD, director of the Food Allergy Program at Boston Children's and a senior author on the paper.
