Antibiotics are medicines used to treat or prevent infections caused by bacteria. However, taking antibiotics can cause side effects. One possible side effect is that it can cause disruption to the immune system in the gut and increase your risk of fungal infections, according to a study from the University of Birmingham and National Institutes of Health.
Due to this reason, patients prescribed antibiotics in hospital are more likely to get fungal infections, said the study published in Cell Host and Microbe.
What can be done to lessen the risk in hospitalised patients? The researchers suggested that using immune-boosting drugs alongside the antibiotics could reduce the health risks from these dangerous infections.
Common fungal infection among hospitalised patients
According to the researchers, invasive candidiasis is a major complication among hospitalised patients who are given antibiotics to prevent sepsis and other highly infectious bacterial infections (such as C. diff). It is a life-threatening fungal infection caused by a yeast (a type of fungus) called Candida. Invasive candidiasis can affect the blood, heart, brain, eyes, bones, and other parts of the body.
They noted that fungal infections can be more difficult to treat than bacterial infections.
Antibiotics can have negative effects on our bodies
In the study, the team treated mice with a broad-spectrum antibiotic cocktail and then infected these animals with Candida. The infected mice had increased mortality, but the researchers discovered that this was caused by infection in the intestine, rather than in the kidneys or other organs.
As they have explained, when antibiotics disrupted the immune system in the intestines, fungal infections were poorly controlled in that area. Surprisingly, they found that the area where fungal infections developed, gut bacteria were also able to escape, leading to the additional risk of bacterial infection.
This means not only antibiotics can make fungal infections worse, but also increase risk of developing bacterial co-infections.
“These factors can add up to a complicated clinical situation — and by understanding these underlying causes, doctors will be better able to treat these patients effectively,” said lead author Dr Rebecca Drummond, as quoted by Science Daily.
Immune-boosting drugs may help reduce complications
The team also identified the parts of the immune system that were missing from the gut after antibiotic treatment. When they added these back into the mice using immune-boosting drugs, the severity of the fungal infection was reduced.
In a follow-up, they studied hospital records, where they saw possibility of similar co-infections in humans after they have been treated with antibiotics.
The researchers underscored the importance of careful use of available antibiotics.
Dr Drummond noted that limiting or changing how we prescribe antibiotics can help reduce the risk of these additional infections as well as tackle the huge and growing problem of antibiotic resistance.