CSB#6 - Flu Fighting is Harder With Antibiotics

We have become a Pill-Poppin' Nation - Misuse of Antibiotics
for Viral Infections like Influenza has Skyrocketed

Antibiotics are often a mixed blessing. They have been one of the sole causes that many of us are alive today - without them, both you and I would probably be dead. However, for all its good, antibiotics are still not a perfect solution. The drug is not completely specific - meaning to say, it doesn't only kill the "bad" bacteria, but also the beneficial bacteria located in the intestine. These bacteria, similar to the ones on your skin, prevent "bad" bacteria from colonizing or entering your body. Researchers from Yale found that "good" bacteria, or the intestinal bacteria, are even more important to fighting the flu. The team of researchers exposed a mouse to four month's of antibiotics treatment, and then infected it with Influenza. The mouse had trouble fighting off the infection due to, or so the team hypothesizes, a molecule produced by the body called Interleukin-1, or simply IL-1. This molecule is critical to fighting influenza, because it is necessary to "beat" the virus. The gut bacteria are hypothesized to help the body because they prime the immune system to produce IL-1 almost continuously. When the "good" bacteria are taken out of the picture, the mouse has trouble surviving. However, researchers also found that this effect is true solely to Influenza. When the mouse was injected with the virus for Herpes, its immune system worked well in fending off the invader. As a final test, the team wanted to find which of the gut bacteria was the cause for the production of IL-1. They conducted tests using a drug, neomycin, which only killed all the Lactobacillus bacteria in the body. Mice which had lost the Lactobacillus bacteria had difficulty counteracting the flu. The goals one researcher had were to find the specific bacteria in the Lactobacillus family that would aid recovering from flu, and seeing if a drug could be produces to boost the bacteria's levels. The idea seems to be one that could be helpful in the future. I had researched many documents about the declining efficiency of antibiotics and its supposed "shotgun effect," in which antibiotics harm nearby cells. However, this research team interested me because it brought some of the lesser known side effects of using antibiotics. Also, I chose this topic because it had to do with the misuse of antibiotics which has become very common in recent times. The misuse of antibiotics could result in them not being useful when they are needed the most.

Works Cited


Article Citation:
Saey, Tina Hesman. "Antibiotics may make fighting flu harder." Science News.
     Society for Science & The Public, 7 Apr. 2011. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.
     <http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/71187/title/
     Antibiotics_may_make_fighting_flu_harder>.

Image Citation:
N/A. "Is there really a Magic Pill that makes troubles go away?" Parenting, A 
     Child's Perspective. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.
     <http://alittlenudge.wordpress.com/category/
     parenting-a-childs-perspective/>.