The Epidemic of Today

Recent studies showed that every third person in UK is allergic. But generations before did not suffer from this epidemic, and scientists now think they may have discovered what's to __________.

Every one of us is covered head to toe with bacteria, and scientists believe these microscopic bugs are the key to explaining why we are becoming more allergic. The bacteria __________ our own cells by about 10 to one but may play a vital role in training our immune systems.

Changes to our lifestyles are influencing these microorganisms, and allergies are the __________.

An experiment showed that most people in the Western world have far fewer types of bacteria living in and on them when compared with people in traditional tribes in parts of the developing world. There only one __________ 1,500 suffered from an allergy.

Life in the West appears to be changing our bacteria and predisposition to allergy and the way our children are born or how we are __________ them up could be a big factor.

Breast milk is now known to contain up to 900 species of bacteria, possibly explaining why exclusively breast-fed babies are less __________ to suffer from allergies.

A not so recent research showed that the greatest threats to us comes from antibiotics, for use of these medicines in early life often severely __________ our harmless friendly bacteria and increase the risk of developing allergies.

Also it seems that we, nowadays, spend on average 91% of our days indoors, which causes that we miss out on the vast __________ of bacteria that lurk in our gardens and in the air.

It also found out that if you have more plants around the house, your chance of being allergic is lower. Realization that we depend so much on these microorganisms is probably the most important __________ in medicine in the last hundred years.

Like it or not, you might want to reconsider everything from what you eat to what you do, because “friendly“ bacteria unarguably __________ our immune systems.