A study just published online Sept. 24 in
the journal Pediatrics has
concluded that using antibiotics early in childhood raises that child’s risk of
ending up with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an umbrella term for the
conditions Crohn’s diseases ulcerative colitis.
And the
younger the kids are when they take the antibiotics, these authors condlude,
and the higher the dose of the antibiotics, the greater the risk of developing
IBD.
That’s
the bad news.
The good
news is that the risk if getting IBD from antibiotics early in life is quite
low.
Nonetheless,
this is just another warning – especially to parents as we enter that period
when so many of us, particularly kids, will develop upper respiratory symptoms
that will result in a visit to a doctor’s office and often we will be offered
an antibiotic “just in case It’s a bacterial infection” (even though the great
majority of such infections are in fact viral and an antibiotic will do nothing
for them) that we must use antibiotics with great caution, and only when
there’s absolute proof that they’re necessary.
And as
with all medications, always use the lowest dose of the weakest form of the
antibiotic for the least amount of time that will do the trick for you, which
means that for many infections the old antibiotics such as ampicillin are
preferable to the newer ones.
