Research on allergy has recently uncovered an
apparent co-occurrence of allergies in skin and the lungs, a phenomenon that
has been coined “atopic march”. A positive correlation has been found between
gut microbiota at birth andthe
development of asthma and skin eczema later in life. Chinese medicine has long
described a functional relationship between the large intestine and the lungs,
and between the lungs and skin. In this short article, we examined the evidence
in support of these inter-organ physiological/pathological relationships. In addition
to the clinical observation of the relationship between the composition of gut
microbiota at birth and the development of asthma later in childhood, gut
microorganisms havealso
been shown to exert a protective effect on bacteria-induced pneumonia in
experimental animals. Genetic predisposition was also found to play an
important role in the co-existence of certain diseases of lung and skin.
Despite the fact that the mechanism(s) underlying the connection of immune
systems between two organs (such as the large intestine and the lungs) is still
not clearly understood, it is the first time to correlate the relationship among
gut, lung and skin based on recent clinical studies in relation to the Zang-Fu
Theory in Chinese medicine. Future investigation of the gut-lung and lung-skin
axes in terms of physiological/pathological relationships may help to provide a
greater understandingof the
pathogenesis of allergies, possibly establishing relevance to the Zang-Fu
Theory in Chinese medicine.
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