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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Looking to microbes in the gut to better understand asthma
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:00:59
	Publish Date:		2016-11-22 18:00:00
	Description:		For decades, researchers have been struggling to understand why some children develop asthma and allergies and some don't. Susan Lynch, a gastroenterologist at the University of California, San Francisco, has found that the microbes in a human gut may have some answers. While sampling newborn babies' stools, Lynch has discovered the same microbes that asthmatic adults have. "And what we found is the children with highest risk type of microbiota they lacked a large range of bacteria and they include key organisms that we consider as biomarkers of healthy individuals. What we also found is that specific group that was at highest risk had quite a large expansion of two different types of fungi - rhodotorula and candida, and we know candida can be pro-allergic." Lynch says that further studies of these microbes' effect on immune function may help prevent asthma and allergies.
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