Researchers, looking at medical records of 13,116 children from Manitoba and saw that infants who had more than four courses of antibiotics in the first year of their life were 1.5 times more likely to develop asthma by the age of 7 than kids who did not get the drugs.  This finding was published in the June issue of the journal Chest.

The authors offered two possibilities for this happening, first is that early exposure to toxins made by the infectious microbes may help an infant’s immune system to develop normally. Second is that the antibiotics may kill off the friendly bacteria in the gut which is also crucial in the developing immune system. If this is the case then adding probiotics to infants who have taken antibiotics may help them avoid developing asthma which is often times caused by a overreaction of the immune system.

Bottom line here is that the overuse of antibiotics is causing more health problems than physicians had originally expected. Patient’s who come into the physicians office with a virus, walk out with a useless antibiotic which causes bacteria to develop a resistance to that drug over time. Antibiotics used in animal food production which leeches into our water supplies is becoming a real problem in the U.S. It is time for the government to step in and start a massive education program to put a halt to this growing problem.