A genetic flaw may be responsible for the link between babies getting antibiotics and the later development of asthma, British researchers revealed today.
The finding contradicts the established theory that children are placed at risk of developing allergic conditions, such as asthma, when they are protected from exposure to infections.
Antibiotics were thought to cause an increased risk by destroying the mostly harmless bacteria that colonise the gut.
But researchers say they have now found a flaw in the region of chromosome 17 placing children at risk of succumbing to viral infection in early life.
The Manchester study, reported in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, involved more than 1,000 children up to the age of 11.
The researchers say they found that children treated for wheezing early in life went on to develop severe asthma at a rate twice that of others.
They found the children’s bodies struggled to produce cytokines, which act against viral infections – but there was no evidence of them failing to respond to bacteria.
And they report two genes on the region of 17q21 linked to an increased risk of antibiotic prescription.
Researcher Professor Adnan Custovic, from Manchester University, said further research would be needed.
He said: “We speculate that hidden factors which increase the likelihood of both antibiotic prescription in early life and subsequent asthma are an increased susceptibility to viral infections due to impaired antiviral immunity and genetic variants on 17q21."
Assessing the association of early life antibiotic prescription with asthma exacerbations, impaired antiviral immunity, and genetic variants in 17q21: a population-based birth cohort study. Lancet Respir Med 15 May 2014; doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(14)70096-7 [abstract]
Leave a Reply