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Antibiotic use in preschoolers alters intestinal microbiome, increases disease risk
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Antibiotic use altered the composition of the intestinal biome in Finnish preschool children, according to recent data published in Nature Communications. In addition, the researchers found that macrolide use in early life is associated with increased risk for asthma and antibiotic-associated weight gain.
“This study shows a strong correlation between repeated antibiotic use in early life and later life obesity and asthma — as macrolides have a much more pervasive effect than other antibiotics, such as ampicillin,” Willem M. de Vos, PhD, professor of microbiology at the Academy of Finland in Helsinki, told Infectious Diseases in Children. “I am also excited to see that the microbiota-based classifier for obesity includes several bacterial groups that have been implicated in obesity development, such as a decreased level of Akkermansia spp., the intestinal mucus degrader that we have discovered some years ago in Wageningen [Netherlands] and that protects mice from diet-induced obesity.”
Willem M. de Vos
While mouse studies have shown that early-life antibiotic use is associated with increased risk for metabolic and immunological diseases, the researchers wrote, these effects on the microbiome had not been studied in children.
Using phylogenetics, metagenomics and individual antibiotic purchase records, de Vos and colleagues analyzed macrolide use in 142 Finnish children aged 2 to 7 years, who were sampled via fecal collection at two time points 7 months apart.
The researchers found that macrolide use was associated with a long-lasting shift in microbiota composition and metabolism — which included the depletion of Actinobacteria, an increase in Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria, a decrease in bile-salt hydrolase and an increase in macrolide resistance. In addition, they observed that macrolide use in early life was associated with an increased risk for asthma and antibiotic-associated weight gain. Lastly, the researchers’ results determined that penicillins were not as impactful as macrolides on the microbiota.
Without compromising clinical practice, this effect on intestinal microbiota by antibiotics should be considered when clinicians prescribe them, the researchers wrote.
“This may have an impact on the present prescription practice,” de Vos said. – by Will Offit
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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