Effects on Allergy and Inflammation

Many people suffer from allergic diseases as atopy and pediatric asthma, which increased rapidly in 21st century. Those allergic diseases are thought to be caused by a combination of several factors including diet change, environmental change, air contamination, and stress increase.

Asthma is a serious allergic disease which threats patients’ life due to difficulty of breath caused by the hypersensitive reaction in the airway. Experts insist that the medical and social cost for asthma is more than the total cost for pulmonary tuberculosis plus aids. Even though there are treatment medicines for each of the allergic diseases, taking steroid type medicine for a long time may bring about serious side effects. It is a current situation that there is no decisive therapy method yet for the complete treatment of allergic diseases. Allergic diseases are basically related to immunity. If a person’s immunity function doesn’t operate normally, he/she will get sick from allergy. However, it won’t take much time to take kefir to fundamentally treat allergy.

Dr. Ahn recently reported that Kefir played a remarkable role for reducing allergy and inflammations. According to the result of an experiment using asthma induced mice, in general, the levels of eosinophil, interleukine-4, and immunoglobulin E (Ig E) rapidly increased. However, in the group of mice which taken in kefir, those levels remarkably decreased. It was also confirmed from alveoli pictures that the asthma induced alveoli went back to normal. A report by Umeda in Japan confirmed that when frozen dried Kefir powder was taken in by a group of mice which had been asthma-induced using ovalbumin, the level of immunity protein unique to ovalbumin decreased and their asthma mitigated.  

There is also a report of experimenting human bodies for pollen allergy. After 23 applicants suffering from the Japanese cedar pollen allergy took in fermented milk for 6 weeks, the symptoms of eye allergy caused by pollens were remarkably reduced. Fermented milk including Kefir was reported to be effective for rhinitis. Aldinucci reported a result of his experiment in which 13 persons with rhinitis and 7 healthy persons took in fermented milk for 4 months. It was found at the end of the experiment that rhinitis symptoms were alleviated. In addition, there was a clinical experiment performed by Giovannini et al for 187 infants between the age of two and five for 12 months.

It was found from the experiment that there was a remarkable decrease of rhinitis symptoms found in the infants who had taken in fermented milk for a long time. According to a report prepared by Morita in 2006 in Japan, the level of lgE decreased significantly after taking 200ml of fermented milk containing lactic acid bacteria for four weeks.

Those diseases of hay fever, rhinitis, asthma, atopic eczema belong to type I hypersensitivity. When they are exposed to outside antigens, they prepare for the attack of antigens by producing immunity proteins produced from the complex operation of immunity cells.  When fermented milk like Kefir is taken by a person, his/her immunity system is complemented and better prepared for antigens, alleviating the seriousness of allergy or preventing the occurrence of the problem.  

Efficacy of DMJ Kefir

Effects of kefir on lung tissue eosinophilia

Effect of kefir on IL-4 and IL-13 level

There is also a report of experimenting human bodies for pollen allergy (Ishida, 2005). After 23 applicants suffering from the Japanese cedar pollen allergy took in fermented milk for 6 weeks, the symptoms of eye allergy caused by pollens were remarkably reduced. Fermented milk including Kefir was reported to be effective for rhinitis. Aldinucci (2002) reported a result of his experiment in which 13 persons with rhinitis and 7 healthy persons took in fermented milk for 4 months. It was found at the end of the experiment that the level of interferon- increased and rhinitis symptoms were alleviated in the group of people having taken in fermented milk. There was a clinical experiment performed by Giovannini et al (2007) for 187 infants between the age of two and five for 12 months.

It was found from the experiment that there was a remarkable decrease of rhinitis symptoms found in the infants who had taken in fermented milk for a long time. According to a report prepared by Morita in 2006 in Japan, the level of lgE, an immunity protein, produced at the time of inflammation as well as rhinitis sysptoms decreased after applicants having taken in 200ml of fermented milk containing lactic acid bacteria for four weeks.

It was recently reported by Matsumoto in 2007 that fermented milk was effective for the treatment of atopy. He observed that after adult people with atopy symptoms took fermented milk for four weeks, there was a change in their intestines and a remarkable decrease of itching symptoms.   

Those diseases of hay fever, rhinitis, asthma, atopic eczema belong to type I hypersensitivity. When they are exposed to outside antigens, they prepare for the attack of antigens by producing immunity proteins produced from the complex operation of immunity cells.  If fermented milk like Kefir is taken by a person, his/her immunity system is complemented and better prepared for antigens alleviating the seriousness of allergy or preventing the occurrence of the problem.