Study Reveals How Antibiotic Exposure Impacts Babies’ Health
A comprehensive study on the effects of mode of childbirth (such as normal and caesarean section) and antibiotic exposure suggest that the changes in the infant’s microbiome may increase the risk of developing conditions like type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease.
According to Ramnik Xavier, MD, PhD, chief of the MGH Gastrointestinal Unit who took part in the study, “One of the key motivations of microbiome research is that the microbial population of early childhood appears to be critical to human health, in that decreased diversity of the gut microbiome has been implicated in a number of allergic and autoimmune diseases,"
In collaboration with a group of Finnish researchers, the investigators enrolled 39 children from whom monthly stool samples were taken beginning after birth and continuing until age 36 months. Each sample was analysed with a standard, RNA-based sequencing procedure used to identify microbial populations, and more detailed whole-genome sequencing was conducted on about 25 per cent of samples to reveal the specific strains of identified microbial species.
During the course of the study, 20 of the infants received antibiotics (9 to 15 treatments) to treat respiratory or ear infections.
Results showed that many features of the developing gut microbiome were found to be consistent across all study participants, with the presence and abundance of particular species rising and falling at similar age points.
One of the key findings is that children who had been exposed to antibiotic treatment had a reduction in the diversity of their microbial population, a difference that was even greater in those who also had the low-Bacteriodes signature. They also found that in antibiotic-exposed children, bacterial species tended to be fewer and dominated by a single strain, instead of the several species and strains seen in those not treated with antibiotics. The analysis of many samples taken over time revealed that the microbiomes of antibiotic-exposed children were less stable, particularly around the time of antibiotic treatment.
The researchers now seek to examine how microbiome gets established during the first week of life and how the composition of the early-life gut microbiome affects children’s health.
Source of this article:
Natural history of the infant gut microbiome and impact of antibiotic treatment on bacterial strain diversity and stability
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