Antibiotics, the once life-saving medication has been overused with dire consequences.

The gut microbiome is there to digest food, synthesize and absorb vitamins and minerals, strengthen the immune system and fight disease.

Overuse has been linked to many diseases and health problems, including:

• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Diabetes
• Autoimmune diseases
• Celiac disease
• Mental health disorders especially anxiety and depression
• Candida infections
• C difficile
• Obesity
• Crohn’s disease

Antibiotic use, not only kills off the bacterial infection but also many beneficial microbes living in harmony in your gut.

80% of the immune systems resides in the gut.

Developing the adaptive immune response is very important in early life and has a huge impact on long term health.

Children and infants are at most risk resulting in more children being diagnosed with asthma, diabetes, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease. Just one dose of antibiotics, significantly alters the gut that can take up to two years to recover. Many children have between 10 and 18 course of antibiotics before they 18 and some before they 10 years old.

Antibiotic resistant bacteria’s are a serious consequence of the overuse of antibiotics.

Research is ongoing and new discoveries are being made every day as to the importance of the microbiome.

Some of the functions of  the gut microbiome are:

• Promoting differentiation of mucosal structure and function.
• Providing accessory growth factors.
• Regulating gene expression.
• Extracting energy from food, such as Bacteroides in the colon that synthesize vitamin K and B’s.
• Influencing hormone signalling, such as pylori’s effects on ghrelin and leptin.

The bottom line is that we don’t fully understand the long term health consequences of meddling with the human gut microbiota in ways the antibiotic overuse does.