What is Digg?47 Comments
- unibomber999, on 10/11/2007, -0/+15@brock
Here's a link to a scientific american article that clearly states that it is the fault of the broad spectrum anti-biotics. They used control groups to make sure it wasn't just that they were prescribed for kids more likely to get asthma due to the nature of their illness.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=21F1880B-E7F2-99DF-359C7CE07F2CC023&ref=rss - physphd, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16Yeah, damn hippie parents following their fancy "scientific research" and following that silly "socially responsible" practice of not overusing antibiotics to slow the production of superbugs. Damn hippies, indeed. Why can't we all just believe what we "know" to be true sans evidence?
Edit: /sarcasm - cause you never can be too sure - carpespasm, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11makes sense to me. The body adjusts to what input it gets. If it gets input early on that says the environment is clean and any time it's not there's going to be something external (medicine) to fix it, the body has no need to harden itself to such attacks. On the other hand if the body's left exposed to the world (having to deal with small/ medium sicknesses, pollen, other allergens, etc...) then it realizes these things are to be expected and adjusts to make antibodies and sets up to not overreact when some pollen bits make it too far into the respiritory system.
- physphd, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7You bring up a good point, but any scientist worth their salt in any discipline will control for this via selection, experimental, and statistical techniques. Given the peer-review this study appears to have been subjected to, you can be quite certain this was accounted for. If that's not enough, go to the principal's home page and look at his raw work. That's the beauty of science - it is transparent and reproducible
- wolferz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7@br0ck
uhm no, your wrong, thats exactly what the article is saying. Use of antibiotics tends to cause asthma development later on.
FTA: The risk for asthma doubled in children receiving antibiotics for nonrespiratory infections, as well as in children who received multiple antibiotic courses and who did not live with a dog during the first year.
FTA: "Antibiotics are prescribed mostly for respiratory tract infections, yet respiratory symptoms can be a sign of future asthma. This may make it difficult to attribute antibiotic use to asthma development," said lead study author Anita Kozyrskyj, PhD, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB. "Our study reported on antibiotic use in children being treated for nonrespiratory tract infections, which distinguishes the effect of the antibiotic."
Key word there being nonrespiratory. I.E. they have no real problem with their respiratory system to begin with and are more likely to end up with asthma later on if they are prescribed antibiotics early on or are prescribed heavy doses of them. Combine this with reports which say children exposed to higher concentrations of bacteria early on in life are more likely to be and remain healthy later on in life, this article making a point to show that they were able to indicate house holds with dogs (a common supplier of pathogens in a home) proved to be exempt from the findings of the report, and the fact that anti-biotics have already managed to produce bacteria that CAN NOT BE TREATED with any known antibiotic and you have to wonder how much good is modern medicine really doing and how much do we actually know about microbes and the human body.
When we look back on the history of medicine we see people thinking of coca cola and opium as cure all, vibrating belts billed as weight loss machines, psycologists trying to "scare" the insane back to sanity, and all other manner of ridiculous "medicine." And yet people at that time really did think they were on the cutting edge of medicine (they were). In a hundred years what are the odds people will look back on us and say, "how quaint... they actually thought mouth wash was a good thing?" - physphd, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Cheers, Unibomber. (Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd write!)
These guys didn't just fall off the turnip truck and decide to author a study. There are a host of techniques that serve to isolate the influenes of all imaginable factors and biases. It scien-tastic! **Ducks**
plastree, points well taken, but never underestimate parents pressuring docs for scrips just "to make sure my baby's clean." I took my oldest in for sports physical last week and heard another parent badgering a doc for tetracyclene script just to make sure he doesn't get whatever's going around in school. Thankfully, the doc balked. - SeaOverflowing, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Antibiotics are dangerous even if you are an adult, and you should use them properly according to your doctor's prescriptions. They are even more dangerous for children, and need caution.
- DrMilkdad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5I was on antibiotics for 8 months as a infant, and yeah, I was diagnosed with asthma when I was 8 years old. No other members of my family have ever had asthma. So, I'm thinking ....... yeah... this kind of sucks....
Thanks science! - BillOReilly08, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4RTFA
"the researchers isolated 148 children who had received antibiotics for skin or urinary tract infections. They found that these kids had an even greater chance of developing asthma than children with respiratory infections who had been treated with antibiotics" - knulpm, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5The journal this was published in was "CHEST".
I assure you, I read it only for the articles. - BillOReilly08, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4I've taken statistics classes. It warrants more RESEARCH...(correlation!=causation) != meaningless.
- plastree, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5How do you determine if your kid really "needs" antibiotics? It seems that too many parents blindly follow the advice of their doctors, who have a vested interest in peddling these instant fixes, instead of doing their own research. Don't let the medical industry scare you into buying therapy; make an educated decision about your child's health care.
That said, there are certainly plenty of legitimate cases for antibiotics, but their excessive use is putting everyone's health in danger. - silverchrysalis, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4"Furthermore, absence of a dog during the birth-year doubled asthma risk among children taking multiple courses of antibiotics."
dammit. i have wicked asthma now, and i just know its because my parents didn't get me a puppy! - BillOReilly08, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2If any of you have taken antibiotics in the past or are currently taking them, kefir is a great culture to eat which will help reintroduce the beneficial bacteria in your body that antibiotics destroy.
- BrewmasterC, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Now the question is was it the antibiotic, the infection, or that people who are destined to be asthmatics have such an acute immune response to an infection that they need antibiotics? Being an asthmatic I would say look behind door number three.
- sarahb459, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1hahahaha.... I love it! Love geek talk!
- djcgmcse, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1does my wife count as a dog?
- sarahb459, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1right, right... why bother even taking your kids to the doctor? do some research, take your time and hope it wasn't meningitis causing their fever.
I don't think it's the medical industry trying to "scare you" into anything... probably just doctors doing their jobs. It's unfortunate that antibiotics have side effects, but unless you have an MD yourself I think it is pretty stupid to ignore your doc's advice... if you're that concerned about a misdiagnosis or whatever, get a second opinion.
Also, part of the problem with antibiotics causing danger... I'm gonna have to say, patients not finishing their antibiotics is putting everyone's health in danger by causing resistant strains of bacteria. - plastree, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1physphd, I agree that it works both ways, but I think this is largely due to the quick fix consumer health culture that we live in. And that comes right back around to the medical industry and its influence on the media and government. Now, I certainly don't blame them entirely. Freaky parents abound.
- br0ck, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@unibomber999 & @wolferz - you guys are right. I guess I need to get my eyes checked.
Now they just need to figure out why this happens. - geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Could also be a combination of all three; antibiotics were always a risky way of treating disease, betting that one compound will be completely inert or mostly inert to the rest of the body's system while completely inhibiting some action of the cells of a bacteria. One of the reasons humans run is because the way we coexist with the bacteria in our gut and because of the way our immune system responds to that bacteria.
Imagine this as a possible scenario: the body's immune response is activated and is currently working to kill off an infection, we throw antibiotics on the infection, killing most of it all at once. The immune system is still active, still in the lungs. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, so I know how bad an overactive immune system can be; imagine asthma as a possible autoimmune condition developing from antibiotic usage at this early development stage (when the lung tissue is still developing, possibly expressing an incorrect protein or being damaged by excess antibodies).
This doesn't mean we should stop using them, but it means we should think a lot more about how we use them and when, and possibly explore other therapies (perhaps phages?). - Amnesia10, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I must have lived in the perfect environment. We had a dog and my mum was a slob. i.e. the house was not spotless, I was dumped in the garden every day so ate snails and dirt, and did all the things that kids do. I had very few days off school and she commented some time ago that I was almost never ill.
Now some many years later I have rarely taken a day off work for genuine illness (I do not include my sickies because the weather was good or I was hung over). The last cold or flu I had was years ago. - tech42er, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Well, you can offset the risk by getting a dog, so...
- plastree, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1physphd, perhaps I'm too quick to accuse the medical industry of being the primary cause for the deficiencies of western health culture. Household product manufacturers play a large role too. It's difficult to find a dish soap at the supermarket that's not antibacterial these days, for example. They would say that the consumer demands it, but the average consumer is misinformed. Who is telling Jane/Joe Kitchen that these products are potentially dangerous in the long term? You have to actively seek information to find out about these things. So my point is, um, people are dumb.
- marsbeyond, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I saw this story on local tv news in Irvine, CA a few years ago. They were treating and curing asthma with 6 to 12 month long treatments of antibiotics! Is that ironic or what?
- JesterRoyal, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Correlation != Causation.
They only state that there is a correlation. - JohnnyXmas, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0I wonder if this is in any way related to those British nannies that they had linked to breathing difficulties in infants a while back?
. . .ouch. . .
. . .too soon? - BillOReilly08, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2So??
- glmory, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Smoking rates have been dropping, while asthma rates have been increasing.
Most air pollution, with the possible exception of ozone and dust mites, does not cause asthma(although it may make it worse). This can be best shown by comparing asthma rates in third world countries with bad air pollution to first world countries that have done a good job of tackling the problem. The first world countries have way more asthma. In fact it is safe to say most things you assume cause asthma don't. They just make asthma worse in people who already have the disease.
Asthma is not a common disease historical, it just became common in the last 50 years(good graphs are hard to come by of asthma rates, but http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7501/1186/FIG1 shows the trend pretty well). This means that something we did in the last couple decades that we did not do before caused the disease to become much more common.
From there, scientists are pretty much looking at coorelations for clues. First born children are more likely to get asthma than ones born later. People with hookworm get a lot less asthma. Babies who got antibiotics get less asthma. Alone these coorelations could be meaningless, but as you look at more and more they start to give predictive power. These observations led to the hygiene hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis) which essentially says we are not exposed to enough micro-organisms, leading our immune system to look for targets. It ends up attacking harmless antigens. To date this is the most commonly accepted hypothesis to why we get so many more allergic diseases than ever before. - physphd, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Plastree
Oh, hey, I'm right with you overall, but since the most common antibiotics have been produced as generics for decades, I can't believe there is as much profit driven pharma-pressure as consumer pressure for what has come to be known as a consequence-free magic bullet. - TypeEE, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0My son has antibiotic before he is one when he had ear infection. He had Bronchiolitis at the age of 2 and our doctor said my son has a higher chance of asthma if he had Bronchiolitis.
- HAD20101960175, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0This is NOT how it works.
First off it’s albumin, not “albumen”. Albumin is in the serum of blood and therefore widely distributed throughout the body, so albumin is not found exclusively in the lungs.
Allergic asthma is the result of an exaggerated immune response to inhaled allergens, so even if the body did mount anti-albumin immunity as you suggest, where would the external inhaled albumin (that would trigger an asthmatic response) come from?
Also, the causes of asthma are incredibly complex and your ‘explanation’ of asthma is over-simplified and lacks any supporting evidence in the scientific literature. Various genetic and environmental factors cause asthma and the interplay of these factors and asthma-risk remains unclear.
The use of antibiotics in the article is only one part of the puzzle to understanding the mechanisms of asthma, as is the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ (which I saw mentioned by glmory in these comments), but the role of diet on asthma is another likely asthma risk factor. - MaximumPig, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Here's how it works: milk contains a protein called albumen, which is also present in lung tissue. Antibiotics destroy the natural bacteria that line the human large intestine. The destruction of the bacterial lining of the intestine makes the intestinal wall more permeable to, among other things, molecules such as albumen. The albumen from the milk enters the bloodstream through the weakened intestinal wall of the antibiotics-taking child and provokes an immune response. This immune response, in addition to attacking the 'foreign' albumen from the milk in the large intestine, also attacks the lungs since they contain a protein in common with the milk, albumen. This auto-immune response causes asthma. The moral of the story: don't take antibiotics unless you absolutely need to, and if you do, eat yogurt (or kefir as billoreilly08 recommends, or a probiotic) to replenish your intestinal bacteria.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2It's not asthma, it's all that fat squeezing in on their lungs and windpipe by age 7.
- wolferz, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0hmmm... misposted some how
- JesterRoyal, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Its actually a pretty important difference. The findings are all speculation, as most medical research of this type sadly is these days. Its like when your dentist tells you that "People who floss in addition to brushing their teeth tend to live 10 years longer." You can't say for sure whether floss is the direct cause of the life span increase and to test it would be irrational. You'd have to have people live identical lives from birth and then make them floss or not floss. Just not practical. So although its an interesting correlation, you shouldn't assume that one causes the other.
Woo.. thats enough of that :) - goosecat, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0Something that is causing kids to get sick could be also causing asthma. Like say, smoking? Kids who are in a smoking household are at the doctor's office all the time and often get antibiotics. This doesn't mean that antibiotics caused the asthma. More likely the smoking caused the asthma.
- br0ck, on 10/11/2007, -9/+6Hopefully the hippie parents have enough reading comprehension to actually read the article and find out that the antibiotics don't cause asthma, they're just more likely to be prescribed for respiratory problems in children that are likely to end up with asthma.
- knulpm, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2"So??"
Take a statistics class. - houndeyex, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2Well, let's try this equality: No dead babies > Athsma. I'd say that's a reasonable deal.
- oslointhesummer, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1They should've measured against a control of kids who were given antibiotics when they didn't "need" them.
Oh wait, that's unethical. - tehpwnrate, on 10/11/2007, -7/+2Nah, look, all of these bacterial infections? Not a concern. My life threatening ear infections that were treated by antibiotics when I was a baby? Not worth the potential risk of a higher chance of asthma later in life.
(I don't have asthma) - mpn401, on 10/11/2007, -8/+2Watch those wacko hippie parents go crazy over this every time their kid needs an antibiotic.
- OverkillTASF, on 10/11/2007, -10/+3Call me crazy...
Sick children are, well.. sick more often... Regardless of whether it's an upper respiratory thing or not so:
Sick children = children who "need" more antibiotics.
Children who "need" more antibiotics = Children who are more likely to have asthma.
It follows then that:
Sick children = Children who are more likely to have asthma.
Give me my nobel prize.
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