The Gut-Immune Connection

Antibiotics are prescribed to eliminate bad bacteria.  Yet, millions of  ”good bacteria” (probiotics)  live in the gut and help to promote a healthy immune system.  Most antibiotic treatments are not able to discriminate between good and bad bacteria – wiping populations of good bacteria out. Kelly McNagny, from the University of British Columbia (Canada), and colleagues tested the impact of two antibiotics, vancomycin and streptomycin, in a lab animal model. They found that streptomycin increased susceptibility to a disease known as hypersensitivity pneumonitis later in life, but vancomycin had no effect. The difference in each antibiotic’s long-term effects can be attributed to how they changed the bacterial ecosystem in the gut. The study authors warn that: “Perinatal antibiotics exert highly selective effects on resident gut flora, which, in turn, lead to very specific alterations in susceptibility to … lung inflammatory disease.”