Study shows antibiotics affect gut microbes of newborns
pharmafile | February 18, 2022 | News story | Medical Communications |
Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Birmingham, with the Spaarne Hospital and University Medical Centre Utrecht, Netherlands, have conducted a clinical trial involving 227 babies to analyse how antibiotics affect a newborn’s microbiome.
In the study, 147 infants with suspected sepsis received one of three standard antibiotic treatments. Their outcomes were compared with 80 babies with no suspected infections, who were not prescribed an antibiotic. Treating babies with antibiotics in the first week of life has been linked with a decrease in a number of healthy bacteria necessary to digest milk and an increase in antimicrobial resistance.
Under current guidelines, antibiotics directed at a broad spectrum of bacteria are currently prescribed to four to 10 per cent of all newborns for suspected infections. In most cases, however, the antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily, as only a small proportion of those who receive the drugs are eventually diagnosed with an infection.
This overprescription is to ensure early treatment for those who are ultimately found to have an infection, as any delay may quickly become life-threatening for newborn babies.
For newborns in the study that had been prescribed antibiotics, there was found to be a significant decrease in the levels of different Bifidobacterium species compared with babies who had no antibiotic treatment.
These microbes aids in the digestion of human breast milk and promotes gut health, while also supporting the immune defence against infection. The team also found an increase in potentially disease-causing bacteria and in the number and abundance of genes related to antimicrobial resistance in the group that received antibiotics.
Though gradually recovering over time, the changes to the microbiome and to antimicrobial resistance genes persisted for at least 12 months and did not improve with breastfeeding, which is known to help a baby’s immune system.
Dr Marlies van Houten, General paediatrician at the Spaarne Hospital, the Netherlands, and co-Principal Investigator of the study, commented: “The fact that start of antibiotic treatment rather than duration seems to be responsible for the damage to the microbiome underlines we need better biomarkers or biological predictors to more accurately determine which infant will develop an infection and thus require antibiotics, and which will not.”
Ana Ovey
