
Why antibiotics are making us all ill - octoploid
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/01/why-antibiotics-making-us-ill-bacteria-martin-blaser
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Yardlink
This has to be taken with a grain of salt unless it's well reproduced and in
longitudinal human studies too. Every day there's new medical research showing
the cause of this or that, or linking something with something else. A lot of
it turns out to be wrong. Remember antioxidants and free radicals, aluminium
cookware causing Alzheimer's disease, polyunsaturated oil, fish oil, etc. etc.
Just more medical science hype.

~~~
mschuster91
> This has to be taken with a grain of salt unless it's well reproduced and in
> longitudinal human studies too.

It has been proved multiple times that antibiotic residues from farm animals
end up in the human body... together with antibotic-resistent strains of
bacteria. What we're doing with the animals we eat is essentially creating a
global-scale evolution accelerator for bacteria.

Only that this kind of evolution is not beneficient for us humans... only for
the planet Earth, which rids itself from the disease we humans have become.

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fleitz
Reminds me of a k5 story from years ago about a guy who apparently cured his
asthma by getting infected with hook worms. It's certainly an interesting
theory, can't really comment on it's validity.

[http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/30/91945/8971](http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/30/91945/8971)

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etfb
It's an intriguing idea, but like the correlation between margarine
consumption and divorce, or the rise in global warming and the reduction in
pirates, it needs more than intrigue. Perhaps the Grauniad article will give
it enough publicity that it will be studied and meta-studied, and who knows?
Correlation may imply causation this time.

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Havoc
While anti-biotics are (or their misuse rather) is clearly a big problem I
don't see them being to blame for this trend of disease spreading with
"westernization". Personally I'd attribute that to crap diet (BigMac & Coke)
and sedentary lifestyle.

~~~
Kudos
Medical professionals are just starting to take this stuff seriously and we
have only recently started studying the human microbiome [1]. Whatever
existing information and biases you're using for your personal opinion are
probably just as flawed.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Microbiome_Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Microbiome_Project)

~~~
Havoc
Whatever existing information and biases you're using for your personal
opinion are probably just as flawed.

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noisy_boy
We are getting fatter because our lifestyles have reduced the need to walk,
run, exert and generally, move around. There is no need to climb stairs due to
escalators/lifts, there is no need to carry bags as there are trolleys
everywhere in the supermarket, our jobs mostly involve sitting on a chair in
an airconditioned office for hours and hours and since we working longer
hours, whatever meagre free time we have, we spend it on the chair in front of
the computer/couch in front of TV. All this inactivity makes us sick and then
we pop pills and another cycle starts.

Health is a complicated issue but sometimes it is as basic as that.

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tokenadult
The article reminds us, "In 1850, four in 10 English babies died before their
first birthday." And that's an important point. Today in the developed world
it seems almost unimaginable to die in childhood. (The leading cause of death
in childhood in most developed countries is "accidents," especially car
crashes, and they are steadily declining in rate.)

The headline is a huge overstatement. This idea that modern life makes people
sick is one of the most common misconceptions on Hacker News, and I have to
keep coming back over and over and over to point to facts on the issue. In
point of fact, we are healthier than ever, and living longer than ever. Life
expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising
throughout the developed countries of the world.[1] Trends already in place in
incremental improvements in disease prevention and treatment and improvement
in medical practice and accessibility of health care make demographers
confident in predicting that increases in healthy human lifespan will
continue. Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than
not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as
long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,[2]
originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current
reference on the subject. Read this to be up to date with how healthy we are
recently. Vaupel's striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever
before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live
to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has
increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six
hours a day."[3]

I suppose it could make me ill to see so many poorly evidenced statements
about human health on Hacker News, but I'm still healthy and cheerful because
I remind myself that few participants here have the training and background to
evaluate medical claims, and those who do are able to back up what the trends
really are. To me, it is alarming that rates of obesity are climbing so
steadily recently in so many countries of the world,[4] and I think it's fair
to say that that trend could eventually slow or even reverse the broader
general trend to healthier, longer human life, but it hasn't done so yet.
Obesity of the kind found in most parts of the world is a much more tractable
problem than the problems that used to weaken and sicken and kill us, and I've
already figured out strategies for avoiding obesity, even in middle age and
even in the environment of lavish food availability I enjoy here in the United
States. I build regular exercise into my lifestyle by walking rather than
driving to many of my daily errands (I live in an outer-ring suburb with a
city walking trail system, but I used to do the same in the inner city
neighborhoods I've lived in at various times).

Summing up, antibiotics are not making us generally ill. They are killing a
lot of bacteria, and most alarmingly adding selective pressure to the
environment of bacteria to select descendant bacteria resistant to current
antibiotics. But we are healthier than before. We can continue to become
healthier than before while continuing to use antibiotics in human medicine
for sick people who need them.[5]

[1]
[http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...](http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html)

[2] [http://www.demographic-
challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...](http://www.demographic-
challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf)

[3]
[http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....](http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx)

[4]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27586365](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27586365)

[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599040#up_6599795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599040#up_6599795)

~~~
Evgeny
_This idea that modern life makes people sick is one of the most common
misconceptions on Hacker News, and I have to keep coming back over and over
and over to point to facts on the issue._

Not the modern life per se, but some aspects of it - definitely. Not the
progress, achieved in surgery - but the widespread sedentary lifestyle and
lack of exercise. Not the achievements in agriculture - but the prevalence,
cheapness and widespread availability of highly processed foods. Not the
invention of antibiotics - but, again, the relative cheapness and availability
of substances like alcohol, cigarettes and other abusable substances ...

While, as you point out, the benefits of modern life outweigh the
disadvantages, that does not mean that we can just ignore those disadvantages.

~~~
jonathansizz
_While, as you point out, the benefits of modern life outweigh the
disadvantages, that does not mean that we can just ignore those
disadvantages._

Precisely, and I'm glad you also picked up on what I considered to be the
obvious point of the article. The commenter above (despite so magnanimously
giving his valuable time over and over and over to educate the rest of us)
appears to have completely missed this. As the article author himself clearly
states, antibiotics have been a huge net positive for humanity, but this
doesn't mean that they don't also have downsides.

It is these downsides that the articles addresses; antibiotics are posited to
play a role in the dramatically increasing incidences of immune system
dysfunction that are now observed in westernized societies.

Overuse of antibiotics not only leads to decreases in their efficacy, but can
also destroy diversity in our microbiomes, damaging our immune systems, making
us more vulnerable to pathogens and possibly also leading to developmental
problems.

Reducing overuse of antibiotics, especially in young children, should become a
central priority for health systems, perhaps complemented with probiotics and
similar measures.

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enscr
Interesting read. 100s of years from now, maybe we'll realize the treating
ourselves with medicines was just an alpha version of hacking our bodies. Next
iteration being nanotechnology. I've no clue and may never know what'll be
next, but I hope it'll be ground breaking.

~~~
sanoli
I just wish we could get rid of the common cold already. (I know there are far
more deadlier stuff around, but I got a cold right now, and it sucks when not
comparing it against the deadlier stuff. Oh, and I also know that cold virus
strains are in the hundreds, and they mutate so it's hard to develop vaccines,
etc etc, but I got a cold!)

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jtleek
This article immediately made me think of this:
[http://www.tylervigen.com/](http://www.tylervigen.com/)

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a8da6b0c91d
Antibiotics and other drugs have allowed many millions of people with
relatively weak immune systems or suppressed metabolisms to live to adulthood
and reproduce. This has been going on for a few generations now. I don't think
it's a stretch to say various modern epidemics like obesity and cancer could
be caught up in this dynamic. Broda Barnes thought this was a major factor
back in the 70s. He identified himself as likely genetically defective.

