Nat Med: antibiotics change the composition of the gut microbiome for several years ahead.
The gut microbiome may take much longer to recover after antibiotic treatment than previously thought. A new study has shown that changes in the composition of gut bacteria can persist for four to eight years after treatment. The work is published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Scientists from Uppsala University analyzed data from 14,979 adult residents of Sweden and compared their antibiotic history with analyses of their gut microbiome. The results showed that even several years after treatment, the composition of gut bacteria is still associated with which antibiotics a person had taken in the past.
It was also found that even a single course of certain antibiotics can leave long-term changes. The most noticeable effects were observed after the use of clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, and flucloxacillin. At the same time, the common antibiotic penicillin V was associated only with relatively small and short-term changes in the microbiome.
The authors emphasize that antibiotics remain important and often life-saving medications. However, new data show that the recovery of gut flora may take much longer than previously assumed, and this factor should be considered when choosing treatment and further studying the impact of antibiotics on health.
