Abstract
The prevalence and incidence of chronic inflammatory disorders, including allergies and asthma, as well as inflammatory bowel disease, remain on the increase. Microbes are among the environmental factors that play an important role in shaping normal and pathologic immune responses. Several concepts have been put forward to explain the effect of microbes on the development of these conditions, including the hygiene hypothesis and the microbiota hypothesis. Recently, the dynamics of the development of (intestinal) microbial colonization, its effect on innate and adaptive immune responses (homeostasis), and the role of environmental factors, such as nutrition and others, have been extensively investigated. Furthermore, there is now increasing evidence that a qualitative and quantitative disturbance in colonization (dysbiosis) is associated with dysfunction of immune responses and development of various chronic inflammatory disorders. In this article the recent epidemiologic, clinical, and experimental evidence for this interaction is discussed.