New research suggests that exposure to certain microbes during infancy—particularly, to those from a particular strain of bacteria found in dogs—can alter the intestinal flora of a baby's developing GI tract such that asthmatic symptoms of a common virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), are undetectable.
In the study, mice were fed dust from homes with dogs and then exposed to RSV. These mice showed to symptoms if infection. The intestinal bacteria of these same mice were also found to be different than the bacteria living in GI tract non-dust fed mice exposed to RSV.
