Environmental factors, then, must play a few role in the disease’s development.
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A brand new study warns that children who are prescribed antibiotics have at least double the risk for developing juvenile arthritis as children who are not prescribed these drugs.
“Our research suggests another possible reason to avoid antibiotic overuse for infections that would otherwise get better on their own”, Daniel Horton, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Pediatrics at Rutgers Johnson Medical School, said in a.
Though arthritis is typically linked to older adults, close to 294,000 American children under the age of 18 are also estimated to be affected by arthritis and/or rheumatic conditions.
It is believed that around half of antibiotics courses prescribed to children for acute respiratory infections are unnecessary, giving more significance to the researchers’ findings.
The database included particulars on 152 juvenile arthritis diagnoses amongst greater than 450,000 youngsters within the United Kingdom between 1 and 15 years previous… Though the study was not entirely conclusive, it has medical experts in agreement that more study on the health effects of antibiotics is necessary. After adjusting for other autoimmune conditions and previous infection, children who received prescriptions for antibiotics had an increased risk for developing juvenile arthritis.
The researchers also found that upper respiratory tract infections treated with antibiotics were more strongly associated with juvenile arthritis than untreated upper respiratory tract infections. “If confirmed, it also provides a means for preventing it”, said Brian Strom, senior author on the study.
Clearly, this study does not prove that antibiotics are the sole cause of juvenile arthritis, but it does indicate that excess antibiotic exposure may be a contributing trigger. Dr. Matthew Kronman, an assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington, admitted that the study wasn’t conclusive; yet he also had this to say: “This very well done and elegant study does add to our growing understanding that there is some risk with antibiotics, and that they do more than just treat the bacteria they are meant to treat”.
Previously, studies had indicated that antibiotics could predispose children to developing other chronic diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) due to the disruption of microbial communities.
Horton cautioned that additional research is warranted to confirm these findings and to understand the mechanism that might link antibiotic use and arthritis in children.
There’s more on childhood arthritis at the USA National Institute of arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
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This is as reported by researchers at Rutgers University.
