Antibiotics may be responsible for soaring asthma rates

ANTIBIOTICS may be responsible for surging rates of asthma, researchers said yesterday.

Researchers believe the way the drugs interfere with gut microbes affects the immune system in the lungs.

They say their findings, based on mice experiments, could explain why the number of people suffering from asthma has soared alongside the increasing use of antibiotics. Dr Gary Huffnagle, from the University of Michigan Medical School in the US, said: “Antibiotics knock out bacteria in the gut, allowing fungi to take over temporarily until the bacteria grow back after the antibiotics are stopped.