According to researchers at the University of Minnesota, common prescribed antibiotics have indicated changes in the gut bacteria which may cause obesity in young children later in life. This may also cause Dysbiosis, an imbalance in gut microbes, including other vulnerable infectious diseases, allergies and autoimmune disorders.
One of the graduate student fellows from Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology program, Ms Pajau Vangay, in her study developed a predictive model with potential clinical importance for measuring healthy bacteria development in the gut of kids.
In further studies, the microbiome showed profound short- and long-term effects of antibiotics on the diversity and composition of the bacteria in our bodies.
"Related metabolic and immune system diseases are increasing dramatically, and in many cases we do not know why," said the senior author of this study, Mr Dan Knights, a computational biologist and assistant professor, Computer Science and Engineering Department, The Biotechnology Institute, University of Minnesota.
He further continued, "Previous studies showed links between both antibiotic use and unbalanced gut bacteria, and in others it showed links between unbalanced gut bacteria and adult disease. Over the past few years, we have synthesized hundreds of studies and found evidence of strong correlations between antibiotic uses, changes in gut bacteria and disease in adulthood."
In a recent study, researchers have developed a framework to map how antibiotics act in the gut to cause disease later in life. In the case of allergies, for example, the usage of antibiotics may destroy key gut bacteria that helps in maturation of immune cells.
"We are using antibiotics as if there were of no cost," said Mr Martin Blaser, microbiologist at New York University, who also led the study. "The costs are not immediate but may be in a long-term.
Mr Blaser's team has previously identified that antibiotics alter the microbiome, and these changes can lead to inflammation and promote weight gain in animals.
According to Dr Patrick Seed, pediatrician and molecular microbiologist, Duke University, he is worried that parents may refuse life-saving antibiotics for their children, when they get to know that it may predispose kids to obesity.
Learning more about how microbes could influence human development might help researchers to develop ways of treating serious infections without damaging a child's future health. He added, "We have to have limit ourselves from taking antibiotics, but we don't have to fear them completely."
The findings may lead to recommendations for use of antibiotics and a clinical test for measuring the development of gut microbe in children.
