Widely used antibiotics may increase incidence and severity of allergic asthma in early life, according to a University of British Columbia study.
The study, published in the journal EMBO reports, shows that certain antibiotics that affect intestinal bacteria also had a profound impact on allergic asthma. Buy Allegra pills online without prescription
"It has long been suspected that kids exposed to more antibiotics - like
those in developed countries - are more prone to allergic asthma," says
the study's author, UBC microbiologist Brett Finlay. "Our study is the
first experimental proof that shows how."
Finlay's team at UBC's Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology and Michael
Smith Laboratories examined how two widely used antibiotics -
streptomycin and vancomycin - affected the bacterial "ecosystem" in the
gut. They found that vancomycin profoundly alters the bacterial
communities in the intestine and increases severity of asthma in mouse
models.
The same antibiotics do not impact adult mice's susceptibility to
asthma, indicating that early life is a critical period of establishing a
healthy immune system.
Allergic asthma affects more than 100 million people worldwide and its
prevalence is increasing on average by 50 per cent every decade,
particularly among children in industrialized countries. According to
the Asthma Society of Canada, asthma affects at least 12 per cent of
Canadian children.
The human gut is colonized by approximately 100 trillion bacteria, and
contains upwards of 1,000 bacterial species. While not fully understood,
these micro-organisms, known as "gut flora," perform a host of useful
functions, says Finlay.
"Modern societal practices, such as improved sanitation methods and
widespread antibiotic use, are causing the disappearance of ancestral
species of bacteria in our gut that may be critical to a healthy immune
system," says Finlay.
"Our study shows this is the case with certain antibiotics and allergic
asthma, and the gut-lung connection is also consistent with observations
that incidence of asthma has not increased significantly in developing
countries where antibiotic use is less prevalent - and in turn, the gut
flora is permitted to fully develop."
The study is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
through the Canadian Microbiome Initiative, in partnership with Genome
BC and the Allergy, Genes and Environment Network (AllerGen NCE).
Marc Ouellette, Scientific Director of CIHR's Institute of Infection and
Immunity, noted the importance of the team's results: "It has been
recognized that microbes play an important role in human health - and we
are discovering that a disruption of these bugs is associated with a
number of chronic health conditions. The important results from Prof.
Finlay's team confirm that giving antibiotics to young children, which
disturb their normal bacterial flora, should not be taken lightly."
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