Antibiotic Treatments During Infancy, Changes in Nasal Microbiota, and Asthma Development: Population-based Cohort Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Early-life exposures to antibiotics may increase the risk of developing childhood asthma. However, little is known about the mechanisms linking antibiotic exposures to asthma. We hypothesized that changes in the nasal airway microbiota serve as a causal mediator in the antibiotics-asthma link.

Methods

In a population-based birth-cohort study in Finland, we identified longitudinal nasal microbiota profiles during age 2-24 months using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and an unsupervised machine learning approach. We performed a causal mediation analysis to estimate the natural direct effect of systemic antibiotic treatments during age 0-11 months on risks of developing physician-diagnosed asthma by age 7 years and the natural indirect (causal mediation) effect through long

SUBMITTER: Toivonen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8096219 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature