Antibiotics are great tools to fight off bacterial infections. However, they have their adverse side effects, such as killing healthy bacteria as well.
Scientists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Birmingham together with their colleagues in the Netherlands found that antibiotics can negatively impact newborns’ ability to digest milk.
Broad-spectrum antibiotics kill a lot of bacteria and some of them are good. Good gut bacteria helps digestion and improves the immune system. Image credit: Tim Bish tjsocoz via Wikimedia
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Infections can be very dangerous to newborns, which is why when there is a suspicion of an infection doctors prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics. They act on a wide range of bacteria and can quickly neutralise a threat. However, these guidelines may not be ideal, because, as some experts noted, in most cases the antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily. Sometimes there is no infection and sometimes it is really not a big deal. Regardless if there is an infection or not, antibiotics damage newborns’ gut bacteria, which has severe consequences on its own.
Scientists performed a clinical trial involving 227 babies to see how broad-spectrum antibiotics affect a newborn’s gut microbiome. 147 of the infants in this study had suspected sepsis and received one of three standard antibiotic treatments in accordance with the guidelines. Researchers compared their outcomes to the rest of the participants who had no suspected infections and did not receive antibiotic treatment. Scientists collected gut bacteria samples before and after treatment as well as at one, four and 12 months of age.
This study showed that antibiotics decreased the levels of different Bifidobacterium species in newborns. These bacteria help digest human breast milk and strengthen the immune system against infections. A change in 251 of 695 different bacteria investigated was observed after treatment, which surprised scientists greatly. The combination of penicillin and gentamicin, one of the recommended treatment options, had the smallest effect on patients’ microbiome.
Debby Bogaert, one of the authors of the study, said: “We were surprised with the magnitude and duration of the effects of broad spectrum antibiotics on the infants’ microbiome when compared to effects of those same antibiotics on adults’ microbiota. This is likely because the antibiotic treatment is given at a time that infants have just received their first microbes from their mother and have not yet developed a resilient microbiome.”
But what can be done to reduce these negative effects of antibiotics on infants? Well, diagnosis methods of infections need to be improved. Furthermore, whenever possible, the combination of penicillin and gentamicin should be used as it is the least detrimental for the healthy gut bacteria.
Source: University of Edinburgh