Not only antibiotics but many other common drugs reduce gut bacteria

The new study highlights the seriousness of the issue, as it confirms that many drugs actually make bowel microbes up and down, altering their proportions, with unpredictable effects over time. Scientists have been surprised at how frequent these “collateral losses” of bacteria are due to the action (apparently) irrelevant drugs.

The researchers, led by Dr. Athanasios Typas of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, who published the publication in the journal Nature, used bacterial cell cultures to study the effects of more than 1,000 drugs (antibacterial, antiviral etc.) on 40 common bacterial species that are representative of the microbial intestinal ecosystem.

It was found that 27% of drugs inhibit the growth of at least one species of bacteria and several more than one, with an effect similar to the side effects of antibiotics on the intestinal microorganisms.

“It is scary if we take into account that in our lives we take many antibiotics and for long periods of time,” said Press and expressed the hope that new findings could help to reduce the side effects of drugs in the future.

Despite the importance of the microbe for health, scientists do not yet have a clear understanding of what kind of “food” most intestinal bacteria want to grow or which foods inhibit their growth, as well as exactly how they metabolize nutrients with which is fed by man through his food.

In a related publication in the journal Microbiology “Nature Microbiology”, Mr. Typas and colleagues presented a study of the metabolic properties of bowel bacteria by studying 96 strains of the 72 most common and most important types of intestinal bacteria, some of which are involved in diseases such as colorectal cancer or inflammatory bowel disease.

Scientists have found a great variety in the way even related bacteria are developed and how they react to intestinal metabolites. In essence, the researchers presented a molecular kitchen with “recipes” on how scientists can cultivate in the laboratory and study better a series of bacteria that have different “nutritional” preferences and growth characteristics.

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