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Nevermind MRSA, looks like antibiotics may do more direct damage:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/476393a.html
The average child in the United States and other developed countries has received 10–20 courses of antibiotics by the time he or she is 18 years old. In many respects, this is a life-saving development. The average US citizen born in 1940 was expected to live to the age of 63; a baby born today should reach 78, in part because of antibiotics. But the assumption that antibiotics are generally safe has fostered overuse and led to an increase in bacterial resistance to treatments.Other, equally serious, long-term consequences of our love of antibiotics have received far less attention. [b]Antibiotics kill the bacteria we do want, as well as those we don't. Early evidence from my lab and others hints that, sometimes, our friendly flora never fully recover[/b]. These long-term changes to the beneficial bacteria within people's bodies may even increase our susceptibility to infections and disease. Overuse of antibiotics could be fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma, which have more than doubled in many populations (see graph).
Sorry, should be in chat forum. Although if it stops us riding our bikes...
10 to 20 courses for the average child? I suspect that is rubbish.
Early evidence?
Hints?
Sometimes?
I think its a badly written piece of poor science journalism.
Take antibiotics, eat yoghurt, problem solved. I wonder if I can get some grant money?
This is all very very old news.
yoghurt? - pah ![url= http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673689927499 ]poo enemas[/url], that's where it's at
Is this an opinion piece or a peer reviewed study?
Without reading the full article (which we don't have access to at work) I couldn't possibly comment other than to say
Overuse of antibiotics could be fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma, which have more than doubled in many populations (see graph).
better have some good back up otherwise it is a target for Ben Goldacre and the bad science blog. Correlation doesn not equal causation.
It standands to reason that if you are taking broad spectrum antibiotics your natural gut flora will be affected. It's the medical equivalent of nuking from orbit. Use of targetted narrow spectrum antibiotics will be less problamatical. I do think people should be using less antibiotics when they are not needed. However, when they are I'll take the long term risks over a uncomfortable death/illness thanks.
This is hardly "news". This is also a "comment" - hence think of it more as a Nature "Editorial" rather than breaking research.
Nevertheless it's antibiotic overuse is obviously a problem.
18-20? Really!? I guess in the US where they can make a killing they're keen to prescribe them!
I had one course of Amoxycilin (sp?) as a young child and something else because of an infected cut on my knee 3 years ago (aged 22), so that's 2 courses by age 25...
Coprophagy - Its the future, I've tasted it 😛
As it's in Nature, i think it's slightly better than the usual Daily Mail medical scare stories that do the rounds. Naive maybe. I agree there's a lot of weasel words in there, and it is an editorial, but in the full piece there are other references to back up the main assertions.
Anyway i'm glad i've only had a couple of courses. The over the counter availibility of antiobiotics in Thailand and India (and maybe other places, i don't know) is scary.
I'm glad I didn't grow up as a child in the United States.
not new news really.