Giving antibiotics to babies doubles risk of asthma later in life
BABIES prescribed antibiotics in their first year are more than twice as likely to develop asthma in later life.
Scientists have issued a warning over giving young children the drugs after a study revealed the link.
The joint Scottish and Dutch research looked at thousands of youngsters and found high rates of antibiotic prescribing for babies before they reached the age of one.
Around 1.1million children in the UK have asthma and the country has some of the worst rates of the disease in the world. The chronic lung condition causes inflammation and narrowing of the airways.
Researchers found 80 per cent of children were given the drugs in the first 12 months of life, and warned about ‘inappropriate’ prescribing, for example to treat common colds and viral infections.
The report was based on four long-term studies in Scotland and Holland. Scientists from Aberdeen and Dundee Universities co-authored the study, which was led by Professor Anke-Hilse Maitland from the University of Amsterdam.
The researchers included Steve Turner and Graham Devereux from the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital and Somnath Mukhopadhyay and Colin Palmer from the Biomedical Research Institute at the University of Dundee.
Their report states: ‘We showed children who had been exposed to antibiotics early in life had a higher risk of developing asthma. In recent decades, a rise in the proportion of children treated with antibiotics in early childhood has been reported. Due to a high burden of infections in children in the first years of life, the prescribing rate of antibiotic is high – in our study around 80 per cent.’
It goes on: ‘When antibiotic use in early life increases the risk of asthma, it would be important to be more critical about [their] prescription.
‘Studies have shown antibiotics are often prescribed inappropriately for illnesses for which they are not necessary, like common cold and sinusitis caused by viral infections.’
The researchers looked at more than 7,000 Dutch children and 2,000 in Scotland. The study, published in the journal Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, concluded: ‘Further research is needed to explore the effects of antibiotics on the immune system and gut in asthma.’
Across the UK, the NHS spends more than £1billion a year treating asthma patients.
Dr Erika Kennington, of Asthma UK, said: ‘This study suggests a link between early antibiotic use and having asthma, but this does not necessarily mean that early antibiotic use causes asthma.
‘Other explanations could be that the infection, rather than the antibiotics, plays a role in asthma development. Equally it might be that the respiratory symptoms being treated are in fact the first signs of asthma rather than an infection.
‘It’s difficult to say what causes asthma and this study is another piece in the puzzle.’
‘Prescribed inappropriately’