The Post-Antibiotic Effect on the Gut Microbiome

A cornerstone of modern medicine, antibiotics have revolutionised the treatment of infectious diseases on a global scale, saving millions of lives.¹ Commonly prescribed to treat and prevent bacterial infections, such as strep throat, tuberculosis and whooping cough, antibiotics have a key role to play in healthcare.²

However, antibiotics can be overused and misused, with 1 in 3 prescriptions estimated to be inappropriate.³ Between 2000 and 2015, global prescriptions of antibiotics increased by 65%, and if nothing changes, this is expected to increase by more than 200% by 2030.⁴ Although there has been an overall drop in Australia’s antimicrobial use in recent years, prescriptions are still too high, with 21.8 million antimicrobial prescriptions dispensed and 1 in 3 people having at least one antibiotic dispensed in 2022.^5-6

The health implications of our increasing reliance on antibiotics are significant. A major concern is antimicrobial resistance - the growing prevalence of bacterial resistance towards antibiotics - which is now a global health crisis. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that this could result in up to 10 million deaths each year by 2050.^7,8

Another significant health issue is the damage inflicted on the gut microbiome from antibiotic use.⁷ In the process of targeting infection-causing bacteria in our bodies, antibiotics can also inadvertently wipe out beneficial bacteria, disrupting the intricate ecosystem of our gut microbiome.⁷