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What is the effect of giving penicillin in early stages of life?

A new study finds that the administration of penicillin in early stages of life causes long-term changes in behavior, intestinal bacterial activity and brain inflammation.

Dr. Omri Koren, Bar Ilan Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee. Source: Bar Ilan University.
Dr. Omri Koren, Bar-Ilan Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee. Source: Bar Ilan University.

In a study conducted by an international group of researchers, including Dr. Omri Koren from the Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University in the Galilee, it was found that administering a low clinical dose of penicillin to pregnant mice and their offspring may lead to long-term behavioral changes. These changes include high levels of aggression and lower levels of anxiety, which are accompanied by characteristic neurochemical changes in the brain and imbalances in gut bacterial populations. Giving mice lactobacillus bacteria helped prevent these effects.

The study was led by researchers from St. Joseph's Hamilton Health Center and McMaster University in Canada. The study was published in Nature Communications and was funded by the United States Office of Naval Research. "In this article, we show that penicillin given at a low dose in the late stages of pregnancy and early in the life of mice, leads to changes in the behavior and balance of the intestinal bacteria. Although these studies were conducted in mice, they point to growing concerns about the long-term effects of antibiotics," says senior researcher Dr. John Bienenstock, director of the St. Joseph's Brain Institute and senior professor at McMaster University. "Furthermore, the results show that probiotics may be effective in preventing the harmful effects of penicillin."

As part of the research, Dr. Koren's laboratory from the Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University in the Galilee was responsible for characterizing the microbial changes. Using advanced sequencing and bioinformatics techniques, Dr. Koren and his team analyzed the microbiome of mouse pups and their mothers. This research is part of the collaboration between the McMaster Group and the Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Medicine staff, which is funded by a joint research grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Science Foundation and the Azrieli Foundation.

"There are hardly any babies in North America who did not receive antibiotic treatment during their first year of life," says Dr. Binstock. "Antibiotics are not only a prescription medicine, but are also found in meat and dairy products. If mothers pass on the effects of these drugs to their unborn or postnatal children, this raises further questions about the long-term effects of antibiotic consumption in our society."

Other studies have shown that high doses of broad-spectrum antibiotics can affect the behavior of adult animals, but there have been no previous studies examining the effects of low clinical doses of common narrow-spectrum antibiotics such as penicillin on gut bacteria and behavior. A previous study conducted in 2014 raised similar concerns after finding that giving clinical doses of penicillin to late-pregnancy mice and early-life pup mice led to an increased risk of diet-dependent obesity. The research team will continue to monitor the results of the study by analyzing the effects of penicillin given only to pregnant mothers on the offspring. They also plan to study the effectiveness of giving different types of bacteria thought to be beneficial in protecting the offspring from behavioral changes resulting from antibiotic use.

5 תגובות

  1. Probiotics are very beneficial to the producers bank account.
    Colonization of the bacteria in the intestine has not been scientifically proven, so it goes out the same way it goes in, so it doesn't matter an hour after the pill or a week after the treatment.

  2. Herzl
    There is no point in taking the probiotics after every antibiotic pill because the antibiotics remain and work in the body a few hours after you swallow the pill and eliminate bacteria.
    Only after you have finished antibiotic treatment and after waiting at least 24 hours from the last pill is there any point in taking probiotics (a capsule that contains intestinal bacteria).
    On the other hand, during the antibiotic treatment phase, while you are taking antibiotics, you should take vitamins that the bacteria in the intestines help to synthesize, and because the antibiotics eliminate them, there may be a lack of them, especially group B vitamins. You should take a general multivitamin, or a vitamin B complex.

  3. Every time I take antibiotics (once every two to three years or even less), I take gut bacteria two hours after each pill of antibiotics. But it is not perfect, since the bacteria found in the market are only a tiny part of the necessary population. The last time, about two years ago, at the end of the treatment, I put my hand in the family dog's mouth and licked it. It is known that dog bacteria are important for the development of the immune system of babies, so it will be good for me too. It was excellent.

  4. In recent years there are more and more studies that show the enormous importance of gut bacteria for our health. And how industrial food affects them.
    It must be remembered that many of the food products we eat contain preservatives whose purpose is to kill bacteria and therefore they also affect the population of intestinal bacteria, meat and milk contain antibiotics that can be given to farm animals almost without restriction, recently a study was also published on the damage caused by artificial sweeteners to the intestinal bacteria...
    It is clear that those who are sick with a dangerous bacteria and need antibiotics to save their lives will not avoid them, but it is definitely necessary to limit the use of antibiotics to exceptional cases only, to completely ban their use in agriculture, and to monitor the food industry in this area.

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