Gut Microbiota Changes: A Key Driver of Increased Food Allergy Prevalence

Food allergy is a highly prevalent disease affecting nearly 30 million people in the United States of America. Over the last decade, the number of people with allergic reactions to known allergenic foods such as peanut, fish, shrimp, soy, wheat, amongst others has continued to increase in the U.S.A. There are currently limited treatment options to prevent food allergies, while most are used to manage the symptoms of food anaphylaxis reactions and do not prevent the disease itself. The current preventive measures that exist are food allergy labelling and avoidance, making patients with food allergies develop an ongoing fear of the risk of accidental exposure. This risk poses a serious threat especially for children. As such, there is an ongoing search for alternative treatment options.

Some studies have indicated that the gut microbiota plays a role in the increasing prevalence of food allergies. It has been shown that individuals with food allergy have a distinct gut microbiome compared to non-food allergic patients and as such, the treatments that have the possibility of balancing or modifying the gut microbiota might be very beneficial in the prevention and treatment of food allergies.

In this Research Topic, we wish to address some of the key issues surrounding this topic, such as:

a. Characterization of the host microbiota interaction identifying the specific pathways that are implicated in the patients with food allergy compared to non-food allergic patients.
b. Therapeutic strategies that can modify specific gut bacteria and enzymes implicated in the food allergy.

We are looking with particular interest into these themes:

a. Uncover specific gut bacteria and bacteria enzymes associated with the development of food allergies.
b. Probiotics and prebiotics in the gut microbiota balance in management of food allergies.
c. Use of computational technology to design therapeutics targeting bacteria implicated in food allergic patients.
d. Role of diet in the gut microbiota changes leading to food allergy.
e. Gut microbiota changes due to stress, psychological state, exercise and metabolism.
f. Gut microbiota changes leading to cross reactivity.
g. Association between environmental allergens, gut microbiota changes and food allergy.
h. Current therapies that are known to modify specific gut bacteria that could be beneficial in the treatment of food allergies.
i. Immunological profiling in relation to the gut microbiota of food allergic patients compared to non-food allergic patients.

All article types accepted by Frontiers are encouraged.