Antibiotic-modified Microbiome Might Be Responsible for Non-contagious World-wide Epidemics

Abstract

The rapid, pandemic-like, spread of certain noncontagious diseases (NCDs), like (childhood) obesity, type2 diabetes mellitus, particularly in children, autism, Alzheimer diseases, etc. prompted the researches to try to find appropriate explanation for this phenomenon. The well-known association between antibiotic enriched fodder and the weight gain of food animals, through the modification of the gut flora, clearly raises the possibility of similar relationship in human beings as well, which was described in several publications. The role of obesity in the development of diabetes is a well-known also. The antibiotic consumption pattern in the World clearly demonstrated the extensive utilization of the broad spectrum antibiotics, starting about three decades ago, and the appearance of still active degradation products in the environment, which might reenter into humans and animals again, and as the result of the alteration of human microbiome, could induce the pandemic-like NCDs. The yet to be explained rapid increase of prevalence of autism and Alzheimer diseases observed in the past three decades is alarming. According to a CDC survey, the prevalence of autism in the surveyed population was estimated as 16.8 per 1,000 (one in 59) children aged 8 years, which is considered as a 150% increase from the year 2000. The prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in Europe was estimated at 5.05% (95% CI, 4.73-5.39). Microbiome alterations were observed in both cases and obesity is present in the 30% of autism as well. Putting together the mosaics from relevant publications, it might be concluded that we face the long term side effects of antibiotic consumption/pollution manifesting, through the alteration of microbioms as the pandemic appearance of certain NCDs. The restoration of the “normal” gut flora by fecal microbiota transfer (FMT) might be an option to influence those conditions.