Revealing the relationship between asthma and antibiotics
A new Canadian study conducted on mice revealed that antibiotics taken in childhood could play a role in the development and risk of asthma.
Asthma is a common and chronic respiratory disease characterized by the presence of inflammation in the airways and their hyperresponsiveness (bronchospasm), which leads to obstruction. Asthma affects males and females at all stages of life.
Reports that antibiotics may damage the bacteria that live in the gut and may cause a more severe form of asthma.
The lead authors and researchers from the University of British Columbia in the Department of Microbiology tested the effects of antibiotics (streptomycin and vancomycin) on newborn mice and adult mice.
While streptomycin had no significant effect on adult mice, it was observed that newborn mice were affected by intestinal disorders and then developed asthma, and the same was repeated in the case of vancomycin.
Through this experiment, the researchers concluded that the stage of infancy and childhood is the most important stage of the immune formation, and that if antibiotics are used, they will most likely eliminate the natural bacteria present in the intestinal wall, which in turn leads to a disturbance of the healthy immune formation and opens the door wide to diseases such as asthma.
This in turn explains the continuous increase in the number of children suffering from asthma in industrialized and developed countries in general, as these children are given more antibiotics than their peers in developing countries.
Brett Finlay comments on this study by saying: (We suspected that children who take antibiotics are more likely to develop asthma and allergies, as the relationship between the intestines and lungs confirms that the incidence of asthma among children does not increase in developing countries because of the limited use of Antibiotics, while the excessive use of these drugs impedes the growth of the intestine and the normal bacteria present in it.
