Kefir Kommunity

Twelve million Americans suffer from some sort of food allergy, according to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network. A food allergy occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks a food protein. The result: A flood of chemicals, including histamine, prompting symptoms such as rashes, hives, itching, swelling, wheezing, trouble breathing, or even loss of consciousness. Even scarier: Food allergies can be deadly.

Kefir has been reported to help with food allergies, but few studies had evaluated the link…until now. Researchers from National Taiwan University in Taipei set out to investigate the relationship and found that subjects who drank milk kefir or soymilk kefir for 28 days were able to better suppress the food allergy response.

Taiwan seems to be on a roll with their fabulous food allergy findings: According to research out of the National Formosa University in Taiwan, feeding babies kefir (Probugs, anyone?!) may help to protect against certain allergic reactions. Children under the age of three have a particularly high prevalence of food allergy - about five to eight percent of infants are at risk - and the only mainstream treatment as of right now treatment is avoiding the trigger food. But if kefir could offer protection, it might open up a whole new word of possibilities for youngsters.

Here's how it works: The creamy dairy drink blocks the allergen-specific antibodyImmunoglobulin E (IgE), which is involved in immune responses. Researchers discovered that the amount of a specific protein found in egg whites which causes a significant amount of allergic reactions in children was decreased by three times when mice drank kefir. This same protein can also stimulate the release of histamine, the chemical which makes your skin itch and your airways constrict.