What is Digg?Sponsored by Microsoft
Microsoft responds to the headlines. view!
microsoft.com/everybodysbusiness - Read our developers' points of view on the headlines making news.
37 Comments
- reflex768, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Fascinating piece. A 50% increase of asthma with 4 antibiotics is pretty substantial.
- nesman89, on 10/11/2007, -7/+14This just in lack of Antibiotic use in the the child's first year may increase Death risk.
- elsJake, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5I've read about this in quite a few websites when i was searching for...god knows what about antibiotics. Turns out it's not so recent.
Whatever , antibiotics are abused anyway. People take 'em like mad at first signs of the flu or a cold (suffice to say antibiotics are useless against viruses) but skip doses , this just makes bacteria immune to that specific antibiotic and we get super bugs...great. - gethane, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7This is really not true in many circumstances. Ear infections are probably a huge reason for antibiotic prescription, however, research shows that ear infections get better without antibiotics. Also, antibiotics themselves can cause death in cases of allergic reaction.
- louiedog, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6That's it. I'm going to throw my first born into a vat of toxic sludge the instant he slips out of his mother's vagina. It'll boost his immune system and hopefully give him super powers.
- thcobbs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4And in some cases, like with my daughter, the antibiotics weren't working enough, so we had to go in every other day for a week and get an I.M. does of antibiotics till if finally cleared.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"they also kill those that are helpful to the developing immune system"
More plausible is that they allow for certain portions of the immune system to become dysregulated, not that they go about killing any subset of cells. Consider that allergic reactions typically have a mast cell / basophil / eosinophil response. If you were to kill off the eosinophil/basophil precursor, you'd actually block the allergic reaction (not that this is an appropriate or practicable way of treating allergy). Point is, the problem is probably not that the antibiotics are killing some part of your immune system. - demonsnake69, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I remember a George Carlin joke where he says him and his friends used to swim in the Hudson River back when it was horribly polluted. "We swam in raw sewage!" he shouts. And because of that his pals never got any serious diseases like cancer.
Albeit it's just a joke, but our medicine-obsessed culture does harm our immune system. How can our white blood cells do their job if the medicine does all the work for them? - thcobbs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Hospital trip from systemic infection = worse
- perogi21, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Or a child who is susceptible to infection at a young age is already genetically predisposed to asthma...
- LakeshoreBaby, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Most fever in kids are viruses anyway, that don't respond to antibiotics. As long as the child has cold symtoms and looks relatively energetic and can drink it's unlikely that a fever is dangerous. Even ear infections in children they are finding are mostly viral and don't need antibiotics.
- VeganG, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"The infection will eventually "eat-thru" your eardrum, so that the puss can run out."
That doesn't sound kosher. - HappyPig, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2The other bit of news in this article is:
"those [children] who lived with no dog in the house had twice the risk of asthma compared with those who lived with one."
Collie up, kids. - lsucatdaddy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Bad study. It's retrospective and case study.
Also don't you think those kids getting sicker and requiring Abx just might be more likely to to get asthma.
Genetic factors and environmental factors need to be taken into account. - Grok22, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1"But broad-spectrum antibiotics probably increase the risk for asthma. It's good clinical practice to start with the narrow-spectrum drugs first and then try the broad spectrum."
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Aww damn. Wonder if this is how I got it. Well, at least my inhaler tastes like orange now.
- daonlyfreez, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I myself suffered from ear infections a lot during childhood, and I never got antibiotics, always "only" painkillers. The infection will eventually "eat-thru" your eardrum, so that the puss can run out. Sure, it hurts as hell if you don't get painkillers, but it will heal all by itself eventually. Never use antibiotics unless you absolutely have to.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Ok this is no secret, but a much bigger question is this, is there any way to fix it after its been done?
- seattlephantom, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1What we really need is an article complaining about comments that point out the article is a duplicate. I didn't see this article 9 days ago and I thank the poster. You on the other hand had the opportunity to, within a microsecond, realize that you had already read that article and that there was no need for you to open it.
- seattlephantom, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That is what I found amazing. Having had asthma my entire life, dogs are one of the main triggers for my asthma. Thinking back I had to have had antibiotics when I was 1 since I had eye surgery. It is interesting to think that there might have been a different outcome. (a little depressing too)
- apologeticus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1maybe diggers don't want to hear this, but one good solution is to make sure your child is breastfed instead of bottle-fed. This greatly reduces the baby's likelihood of needing antibiotics in the first place.
- daonlyfreez, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Well, you can either ask your doc to pinch the eardrum, or you can simply wait till it "eats-thru". May sound gruelsome, sure... Or use anti-biotics, and suffer the consequences (weakens your immune-system, leaves traces in your bone-marrow).
- astrotrain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1What can you do?
.... learn how to use HTML.
.... learn not to use it when responding on Digg.
There you go... two of my reasons for 'what you could do.' - Error601, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The lack of use of antibiotics to treat infection can also greatly increase the chance of death in the first year. Or any year for that matter.
- simplejoe79, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1NICE STUDY.....i am....wondering if thats how my brother got asthma?because he was given antibiotics in first year.....
- astrotrain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Antibiotics are not the greatest thing to take for every cold, cough, or sore throat. I can see where this article is going. And don't let your doctor keep trying new antibiotics some doctors have a tendency to keep swapping around antibiotics trying to cure you fast but fail to see how much of them they pump into you. I think at one time when I was with pneumonia, I had around four different types of antibiotics in me, now I can't use them because my body became immune to them (thanks Dr. Yezdoni... you quack).
- coltrane68, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The authors of the study clearly do not understand the difference between correlation and causality. The study shows that early antibiotic use is correlated with asthma. However, there is no evidence of causality. To show that, an experiment might be designed to randomize children to receive antibiotics or placebo and follow the children over time. Of course, this experiment will never be performed - it would be highly unethical.
It is important to note the difference between correlation and causation. Having a BMW is likely correlated with having children with high SAT scores, since BMW owners tend to be rich enough to provide their children with good educations and protect their children from the negative influences of poverty. However, the idea that BMWs could cause high SAT scores is preposterous. Unfortunately, this logical fallacy is misunderstood by too many of the people who make our policy decisions! - SpaceMonkeyZero, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Kids exposed to cockroaches at a young age also are more likely to get asthma.
Clean your house, pigs! - SpaceMonkeyZero, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Don't have kids.
- oana77, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Every medicine has a side effect I think,
Oana,
http://benvarim.blogspot.com/ - joshshu, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1jews medicine... is insane
- leftistcoast, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0I couln't agree more. In fact, I'm 31 and aside from a brief break between the ages of 3 and 16, I've been breastfeeding my whole life! Thank you, boobies, for keeping me healthy!
- TypeEE, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0We dugg this pcs here 2 weeks ago. http://www.digg.com/health/Antibiotic_Use_In_Infants_Linked_To_Asthma
"A new study has found that the use of antibiotics in the first year of a child's life is associated with an increased risk for asthma at age 7", its before 7, not at 7 - maximusGeek, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2See.... Tom Cruse was right! Down with modern medicine!
- Giddes, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0Buried. The same thing was posted 9 days ago.
http://digg.com/health/Antibiotic_Use_In_Infants_Linked_To_Asthma
That's funny...a duplicate story listed directly below an article complaining about duplicate stories. - nesman89, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0sorry for double post
- MikeonTV, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1but what can [b]I[/b] do?
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is