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Hey y’all! Today we’re going to dive into something that is a little extra important to me. We’re going to be talking about antibiotic use and how it specifically relates to asthma (which is important to me considering I have asthma). Anyway, there has been a little bit of research that has looked into the relationship to early exposure to antibiotics. Specifically, this article published on PubMed demonstrated a statistically significant link to early antibiotic exposure and the development of asthma in children. It was a meta-analysis of multiple studies that showed the link was very strong and needs further consideration in future medical contexts.
Beyond the link of early exposure causing asthma, studies have also explored specifically what antibiotics are linked to asthma. Take this article published in Nature for example. It’s research demonstrated that specifically azithromycin was an antibiotic that led to the development of asthma. That’s wild! What’s even crazier is this study also explained how important the microbiome is and how antibiotics mess with it. Early exposure was a key factor so make sure to be careful with your kiddos!
Gastrointestinal Disorders
What’s even crazier is that the effects of early antibiotics don’t stop there. Many studies have investigated the link between early antibiotic use and gastrointestinal problems later in life. This makes sense, because antibiotics can take a serious toll on our microbiome. Which, as we know, the microbiome is seriously necessary to stay feeling 100%. For example, this study published on PubMed demonstrated links between early antibiotic use and Celiac disease. So just one more thing to look out for!
If that’s not enough to convince you of the problems, there have been even more gastrointestinal problems linked to early antibiotic use. This PubMed article looks at the link between early exposure and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Specifically, exposure before the age of 5 caused a significant increase in risk. Essentially, we need to be a bit more careful before handing out antibiotics, especially to young children! The microbiome needs to be defended a bit more, and we can dive into how it hasn’t necessarily been a priority so far.
The Prescription Problem
As promised, here’s what’s been going on with antibiotic prescriptions. TLDR: antibiotics are getting prescribed when they’re not needed, unnecessarily harming our guts and building antimicrobial resistance. This NIH article goes into how acute bronchitis is viral for by over 90% of infections. However, research shows that around 58% of outpatient treatments for bronchitis in young children are antibiotics. Improper assessment and diagnostics are ruining our microbiomes and putting our young ones at risk. Yikes!
While you may not get right away why the link between these two things is a problem let me break it down. More than likely, the use of antibiotics when not needed (i.e. when you have a viral infection and antibiotics will do nothing for the infection) we’re hurting our microbiome and letting resistant strains thrive/development. This increases risk of hosting resistant bacteria in our body and creating problems down the line. We need to be EXTREMELY careful when prescribing antibiotics because proper use is incredibly necessary and sparing use will help in the war against resistant strains of illnesses. By not overprescribing antibiotics we can push back against these crazy issues.
Karson Does Micro 