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A new study reported January 18 2024 in Science Alert has found antibiotic resistance genes is giving our gut bacteria an ongoing advantage over microbes that cause us harm. They have beneficial effects “by promoting microbiome resilience to antimicrobials,” says University of Massachusetts bioinformatician Shakti Bhattarai (1).

In a study of 24 patients, Bhattarai and his team found that friendly bacteria reestablish strong presence in the gut following initial imbalance caused by antibiotics treatment.

Although antibiotic treatment severely destabilizes patient gut microbiota, repopulation of nonpathogenic bacteria between 6 to 24 months in the treatment, a process that was promoted by the emergence of mutated, antibiotic resistance in commensal species, adds original editor Catherine Charneski in Science (2)

 

(1) https://www.sciencealert.com/gut-bacteria-is-surprisingly-resilient-to-antibiotics-long-term-study-shows

 

(2) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adi9711