A new study in healthy adults suggests that antibiotics may reduce the effectiveness of the flu vaccine.
The depletion of gut bacteria by antibiotics appears to leave the immune system less able to respond to new challenges, such as exposure to previously unencountered germs or vaccines, said Bali Pulendran, Ph.D., professor of pathology and of microbiology and immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
“To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the effects of broad-spectrum antibiotics on the immune response in human—in this case, our response to vaccination—directly induced through the disturbance of our gut bacteria,” he said.
Comments are closed.