Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

Curated and Reported by: Dr. Venkat S. Karra, Ph.D.

Know How We ALL Knowingly or Unknowingly Consume Antibiotics and How it Effects Our Health

Billions of microbial cells live in the guts of humans and other animals. Research on these vast bacterial populations, called microbiomes, is just getting started, but scientists already know that some microbial boarders play a crucial role in breaking down nutrients in our diet. Some have also suspected that low-dose antibiotics, given to farm animals to make them grow bigger, could work by altering the gut microbiome.

To test this hypothesis, a team led by microbiologist Martin Blaser of the New York University School of Medicine in New York City added antibiotics to the drinking water of mice that had just been weaned. The medicine—either penicillin, vancomycin, a combination of the two, or chlortetracycline—was given at doses comparable to those approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as growth promoters in farm animals. After 7 weeks, the group of mice on antibiotics had significantly more fat than a control group drinking plain water, the team reports online today in Nature. “This confirms what farmers have shown for 60 years, that low-dose antibiotics cause their animals to grow bigger,” Blaser says.

Read more at:  The Global Innovations

Now, Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and University College Cork, Ireland, found that antibiotic concentrations within limits set by US and European Union (EU) regulators are high enough to slow fermentation, the process that acidifies the sausages and helps destroy foodborne pathogens like Salmonella or E. coli.

“At low concentrations and at regulatory levels set by authorities, they could see that the lactic acid bacteria are more susceptible to the antibiotics than the pathogens are.

“Residual antibiotics in the meat can prevent or reduce fermentation by the lactic acid bacteria, but these concentrations do not effect survival or even multiplication of pathogens.”

Antibiotics used as growth promoters or to treat disease in livestock can eventually end up in meat, and regulators in the US and EU have set limits on the concentrations of antibiotics in meat for consumption by humans.

Researchers say that fermented sausages occasionally cause serious bacterial infections, but it’s never been understood why that might be….

Read more at: sciencecodex

Related articles

• Antibiotic residues in sausage meat may promote pathogen survival (esciencenews.com)
• Antibiotic residues in sausage meat may promote pathogen survival (eurekalert.org)
• Antibiotic residues in sausage meat may promote pathogen survival (scienceblog.com)
• Antibiotic residues in sausage meat increase the likelihood of food poisoning (nyrnaturalnews.com)
• Sausage Paradox: Residual Antibiotics Increase Foodborne Disease Risk (treehugger.com)
• Receiving antibiotics early in life may also make children grow fat (tginnovations.wordpress.com)
• Killing off the microbiota through antibiotic use may be a factor in the rise of obesity (tginnovations.wordpress.com)

Related articles

• Killing off the microbiota through antibiotic use may be a factor in the rise of obesity (tginnovations.wordpress.com)