UBC researchers report in EMBO reports that vancomycin profoundly altered gut bacteria in mice and increased the severity of allergic asthma, while the same antibiotics left adult mice unaffected, pointing to early life as the critical window for building a healthy immune system.
Section archive
Antibiotics
- All desks
- Abortion
- Accutane
- Acetaminophen
- Acid Reflux
- Acidic Foods
- Acne
- Acrylamide
- Acupuncture
- Additives
- ADHD
- Adiposity
- Advisories
- Aerobic Exercise
- Aflatoxin
- Agave
- Agent Orange
- Aging
- Agriculture
- AIDS
- Air Pollution
- Airline Passengers
- Airport
- ALA
- Alcohol
- Alcoholic Beverage
- Alerts
- Allergy
- Alli
- Aloe Vera
- ALS
- Alternative Medicine
- Aluminum
- Alzheimer's
- Amalgam
- AMD
- Ampyra
- Amygdala
- Anal Cancer
- And
- Anemia
- Angiogenesis
- Animal Protein
- Animals
- Anorexia
- Anthocyanins
- Anthrax
- Anti-Angiogenesis
- Anti-Obesity
- Antibacterial
- Antibiotic
Food
Babies who consume fish early in life have a lower risk of wheezing
A Swedish cohort study found babies who ate fish before nine months had a 40 percent lower risk of recurrent wheezing. Broad-spectrum antibiotics in the first week of life doubled that risk and nearly tripled the risk of multiple-trigger wheezing up to age 4.5.
Chemical
Arsenic, Antibiotics and Asthma Drugs in Your Turkey? Yes!
A rough year for turkey producers: studies found turkey carried two to three times the antibiotic-resistant staph of other meats, Pfizer kept its arsenic-containing Histostat for turkeys after dropping the chicken version, and Cargill recalled 36 million pounds over salmonella.
Drug
Combating Antibiotic Resistance from FDA
The FDA explains that antibiotics treat bacterial infections but not viruses, and that misuse and overuse breed resistance, which can mean longer illnesses, more doctor visits, costlier drugs and more deaths. Its labeling rules urge prescribing only when clinically necessary.
Environment
How Has Antibiotic Resistance Impacted Your Practice?
A letter from PCRM president Neal Barnard asking physicians to describe, through a survey, how antibiotic resistance has affected their practice, noting that 80 percent of US antibiotics go to livestock rather than people.
Disease
Pink news: Antibiotic use linked to breast cancer
A meta-analysis in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety pooled five case-control studies covering 13,069 cases and 73,920 controls and found women who had ever taken antibiotics were 17.5 percent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, with a borderline dose-response effect.
Avoiding Illness
Superbug Has Arrived in the US
Hospitals in Massachusetts, Illinois and California have treated three patients carrying NDM-1, a resistance mechanism traced to India; all three had undergone medical procedures there. A CDC epidemiologist notes that carbapenem-resistant bacteria already spread in US hospitals and nursing homes.
Food Chemicals
FDA: Too Many Antibiotics
In a draft guidance, the FDA asked farmers to give food animals antibiotics only when the animal's health is at stake, not to promote growth, warning that overuse breeds resistant bacteria. Pork producers called it burdensome; scientists' groups said the agency moved too slowly.
Chemical
Denmark Uses Antibiotic-Free Animals
Denmark's 17,000 farmers have given antibiotics only to sick animals for 12 years, and the country's pork industry has grown 43 percent since. Mercola notes that about 70 percent of all antibiotics go to agriculture and calls this a driver of resistant infections.
Lifestyle
Sniffle or Sneeze? No Antibiotics Please
The CDC reminds parents that antibiotics kill bacteria, not the viruses behind colds, flu and most sore throats. Surveys show many Americans still expect a prescription and doctors often yield, which drives the spread of drug-resistant bacteria.
10 stories