According to a research report released by University of British Columbia researchers on the 16th, the use of antibiotics in children may increase the incidence and severity of their allergic asthma.

The researchers used streptomycin and vancomycin as antibiotics in newborn and adult mice. After observing them, they found that streptomycin had no major adverse effects on newborn mice, but vancomycin caused them to have dysbacteriosis and severe asthma. In contrast, adult mice did not show any symptoms.

The researchers explained that this shows that the early stages of life are crucial to the establishment of a healthy immune system. If this process is disturbed, the beneficial bacteria in the gut will be destroyed, which will reduce the efficiency of the immune system and make people more susceptible to the disease. Asthma such a disease.

According to reports, there are about 1,000 kinds of bacteria in the human intestine, amounting to 10 trillion. Although their functions have not yet been fully understood, these microorganisms, called intestinal flora, play an important role in human immune function.

The report's lead author, Brett Finley, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, said that people have long noticed that the use of antibiotics in more areas, such as children in developed countries, are more susceptible to allergic asthma, this study to explain The reason provides the first experimental proof.

He said: "We observed that there was no significant increase in the number of asthma cases in developing countries that use less antibiotics. This is consistent with our experimental conclusions."

Over 100 million people in the world suffer from allergic asthma. This figure increases at an average rate of 50% every 10 years. Children in developed countries are more likely to suffer from this disease. Statistics from the Canadian Asthma Association show that at least 12% of children in Canada have allergic asthma.