FLICKR, JUSTIN SCHUCKBabies with low levels of four types of common gut bacteria at 3 months of age tend to develop early signs of asthma by their first birthdays, according to a study published this week (September 30) in Science Translational Medicine.
Research has previously shown that infants given antibiotics are more prone to developing the breathing disorder. “[The research] puts a lot of epidemiological observations from over the years into a new perspective,” asthma researcher Marsha Wills-Karp of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, who was not involved in the latest work, told Science.
“There’s more and more evidence that modern illnesses derive from this loss of microbes—especially early in life,” New York University microbiologist Martin Blaser, who also did not participate in the research, told The Wall Street Journal. “The good germs are the ones we get from mom, and those guys are disappearing.”
To explore the association between antibiotic use and asthma risk, Brett Finlay of the University of ...
