Probiotic drinks such as Yakult and Vivit can alleviate the symptoms of pollen allergies, says Wageningen UR PhD scholar Yvonne Vissers. They do this by diminishing the amounts of certain proteins that cause hay fever. The probiotic drinks also stimulate the manufacture of allergy-inhibiting substances. Particularly good results were obtained with Lactobacillus plantarum lactic acid bacteria. Vissers describes her findings in the thesis she defended on Friday 10 June. Allergies are an excessive reaction by the immune system to foreign substances in the body, such as pollen, flakes of skin or house mites. In cases of pollen allergy, the body makes an immune protein known as IgE, which attacks the intruding pollen. This causes histamine to be released, which is responsible for the classic allergy symptoms such as a runny nose, sneezing, and red and watery eyes.
