Three Sources of Antibiotics That Threaten Human Health
February 04, 2015
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By Dr. Mercola
Antibiotic resistance is a serious threat facing all of us today,
and there's plenty of blame to go around. Overall, modern science,
especially veterinary medicine, has done a miserable job when it comes
to predicting the outcome of its actions.
According to Dr. Cyril Gay,1 the senior national program leader at the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service:
"The loss of antibiotics due to antimicrobial resistance is
potentially one of the most important challenges the medical and
animal-health communities will face in the 21st century."
Antibiotic resistance has also been declared "an increasingly serious
threat to global public health that requires action across all
government sectors and society" by the World Health Organization (WHO).2
Antibiotic overuse is rampant. Inappropriate use and negligent disposal
of antibiotics is also a major part of the problem. Three of the
primary sources of antibiotics entering the environment, the human food
chain, and the human body are:
- Medicine
- Agriculture (both livestock and produce)
- Pharmaceutical processing plants dumping drugs into wastewater
Antibiotics are a foundational component of modern medicine, without
which many of our current treatment modalities and medical procedures
become exceedingly dangerous.
Due to overuse, bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to these
drugs, and even "simple" infections like urinary tract infections can
become lethal. It's also exceedingly costly.
What farmers are saving on the front end by using antibiotics instead
of costlier alternatives, Americans pay for on the back end, via
exorbitant health care costs. As noted by Scientific American:3
"[R]esearchers estimate that antibiotic resistance causes Americans
upwards of $20 billion in additional healthcare costs every year
stemming from the treatment of otherwise preventable infections."
Antibiotics in Agriculture
In the US, animals raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)
are routinely fed low doses of antibiotics to make them grow fatter,
faster, and to prevent disease associated with crowded and unsanitary
living conditions.
This appears to be one of the primary driving factors when it comes to
the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. According to CDC
statistics,4
two million Americans are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria
each year, and at least 23,000 of them die as a result of those
infections.
A recent report,5
commissioned by the British government, estimates that by the year
2050, drug-resistant disease cause more than 10 million deaths and cost
the global economy $100 trillion!
Even the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that
antibiotic-resistant disease can be spread via ingestion or contact with
contaminated foods. Despite this knowledge, the FDA has opted not to
ban the use of antibiotics in agriculture.
Last year, the agency issued updated guidance on agricultural
antibiotics, recommending that pharmaceutical companies voluntarily
relabel certain antibiotics,6,7 reserving them for use in sick animals only, with a prescription from a licensed veterinarian.
Aside from the fact that they're leaving it up to pharmaceutical
companies to be the heralds of change—a change that will reduce the drug
companies' income, there are other glaring loopholes. As noted by
Scientific American:8
"[S]ome worry that the FDA's action doesn't go far enough, given
that farmers will still be able to administer antibiotics to their
livestock for disease prevention.
The fact that more and more livestock operations are switching over
to Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) whereby animals are confined in
crowded enclosures (instead of allowed to graze at pasture) means that
antibiotics will play an increasingly important role in disease
prevention."
US Meat Production Uses More Antibiotics Than Ever
The US uses nearly 30 million pounds of antibiotics each year to raise food animals.9,10 This accounts for about 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the US.11
Moreover, according to the most recent FDA report, antibiotic usage
INCREASED by 16 percent between 2009 and 2012, and nearly 70 percent of
the antibiotics used are considered "medically important" for humans.12
A 2013 paper by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) titled "Antibiotic Resistance in Foodborne Pathogens,"13
report that between 1973 and 2011, there were 55 antibiotic-resistant
foodborne outbreaks in the US. More than half of these outbreaks
involved pathogens resistant to five or more antibiotics!
In my view, these are highly compelling reason to switch to organic,
grass-fed (pastured) varieties, as growth promoting drugs such as
antibiotics are not permitted in organic farming.
Antibiotic Resistance Promoted via Drug Manufacturing Process
Forbes Magazine14
recently featured an article on the topic of antibiotic resistance,
noting that the drug manufacturing process itself may also be a major
contributor to drug resistant bacteria in the environment.
During the drug manufacturing process, significant quantities of
antibiotics are flushed out into wastewater, which then find its way
into rivers, drinking water, and agricultural crop lands. Many drug
companies have located their manufacturing facilities in countries where
production costs are low, such as China and India.
According to Forbes:
"Patancheru, near Hyderabad, India, has a treatment plant that
receives wastewater from 90 pharmaceutical companies which discharge
400,000 gallons daily.15
This effluent from manufacturing is combined with domestic wastewater.
In India, only 24 percent of domestic waste undergoes treatment.
Researchers from Sweden have studied the area around Hyderabad for a number of years, publishing a series of reports since 2007.16 They found a number of drugs contaminating the water, some in concentrations higher in the water than in patients' blood.
The worst was pollutant was ciprofloxacin, with concentrations up to 31 mg/L and in
only one day totaling "44 kg, which is equivalent to Sweden's entire
consumption over 5 days, or, expressed in another manner, sufficient to
treat everyone in a city with 44,000 inhabitants."
These researchers also found that the effluent was toxic to many organisms, and that it promoted resistance genes.17 Almost two percent of DNA samples from downstream sites sampled had resistance genes"18 [Emphasis mine]
Aside from direct ingestion, contaminated wastewater also finds its way onto crop fields via irrigation and sludge (biosolids)
used as fertilizer. In this way, drug resistant genes are spread
throughout the environment. The spread is by no means contained in any
way. According to a 2008 CDC report,19
E.coli bacteria resistant to multiple drugs have even been found in the
Arctic; brought there by migrating birds... How can we even begin to
address these issues?
As noted by Forbes:
"Clearly, this will require a multi-pronged approach. Besides the
need to control agricultural misuse, a major area that requires urgent
attention is the need for improved sanitation globally...
We
also need better regulation of industrial waste and strengthening and
enforcement of whatever environmental protections are available. Amy
Pruden, Joikim Larsson, et. al. have an excellent overview20
of management options, ranging from wastewater and biosolid treatment,
to limiting agricultural and aquacultural use, and the use of
alternatives to antibiotics. One thing individuals can do is to educate
about safe drug disposal..."
Researchers to Determine Role of Farm Practices in Rise of Superbugs
The farm industry has long denied or downplayed its role in
drug-resistant disease, but scientists are now inching closer to
determining exactly how the livestock industry's misuse of antibiotics
contributes to human disease. As reported by Reuters:21
"Researchers at Colorado State University are rolling out a series
of projects to track antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the livestock
industry, in an attempt to determine whether farm practices are fueling
the rise of "superbugs." Using a $2.25 million grant from the US
Department of Agriculture, the scientists will focus on the DNA of these
bacteria to help identify and trace back where such organisms become
drug-resistant. 'We're trying to answer the question, 'Are
agricultural production systems truly affecting human health by
increasing antimicrobial resistance?' said veterinarian Paul Morley, a
professor of epidemiology and infection control at Colorado State
University, Fort Collins."
A recent Frontline News documentary also investigated the role of large
scale meat production as a primary breeding ground of drug-resistant
bacteria. According to their investigation, meat may be a source of
potentially lethal infections—not simply because you're eating
antibiotics and therefore building resistance, but also because the meat
may be tainted with drug-resistant bacteria that can cause acute
disease if the meat is improperly handled or undercooked. Previous
research22
has suggested you have a 50/50 chance of buying meat tainted with
drug-resistant bacteria when shopping at your local grocery store.
One example given is drug-resistant urinary infections, which are on
the rise. If the antibiotics fail to wipe out the bacteria, the
infection can progress to your kidneys, which allows the bacteria access
to your blood. The result is sepsis, which kills 40,000 Americans each
year. Using state of the art genome sequencing, researchers have
compared E.coli samples found on supermarket meat with E.coli samples
collected from patients with drug-resistant urinary tract infections,
genetically linking more than 100 urinary tract infections to tainted
supermarket meat products.
Why Were Warnings Not Heeded Decades Ago?
As reported by The Atlantic,23
we had foreknowledge that using antibiotics for growth promotion in
animals was a bad idea, but industry interests won over concern for
human and environmental welfare:
"Dr. Stuart B. Levy... author of the book The Antibiotic Paradox: How the Misuse of Antibiotics Destroys Their Curative Powers... has
been warning about this impending disaster for nearly 40 years, a
couple of decades after farmers discovered that putting small amounts of
antibiotics in the animals' feed resulted in increased growth. Even
back then, a study24
led by Levy found that chickens developed resistance to the antibiotic
tetracycline at a rapid pace–within a week, the animals had resistant
bacteria in their gut.
Months later, the stubborn bugs had spread to untreated chickens
and even the farmers. And it didn't stop there: Those resistant bacteria
also became resistant to other antibiotics that the chickens hadn't
even consumed. 'Antibiotics used anywhere creates antibiotic resistance,
and that resistance doesn't stay in that environment,' Levy says. And
resistance is transferrable among bacteria of different types."
Antibiotics Also Contribute to Obesity
While antibiotic-resistant disease is perhaps the most acute danger of
antibiotic overuse, it also has more insidious and hard to prove
consequences on human health. We now know that antibiotics alter the
microbiome—the microbial composition in your gut—which can result in
obesity and any number of other health problems. It's also worth
recalling that antibiotics are used in livestock to promote weight gain.
As previously stated by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food:25
"Continuous, low-dose administration of an antibiotic can increase
the rate and efficiency of weight gain in healthy livestock. The
presence of antibiotics likely changes the composition of the gut flora
to favor growth. Debate is ongoing as to how gut flora are changed;
change may simply be a reduction in numbers, a change in species
composition or a combination of the two… Some antibiotics may also
enhance feed consumption and growth by stimulating metabolic processes
within the animal."
If low dose antibiotics make animals fatter, why would we assume the
effect on humans would be any different? A recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine,26
authored by Dr. Tine Jess, MD discusses the scientific evidence linking
antibiotics and obesity. For example, mice exposed to subtherapeutic
doses of antibiotics early in life suffered "lasting effects on body
composition owing to alteration of the intestinal microbiota." Studies
suggest there may be a critical window of time, right before and after
birth, when exposure to antibiotics can cause long-term alterations in
body composition.
According to Dr. Jess:
"Male mice whose mothers were treated with penicillin
before the birth of the pups and throughout the weaning process had a
markedly altered body composition in adulthood, with increased total
mass and fat mass, increased ectopic fat deposition, increased hepatic
expression of genes involved in adipogenesis, decreased bone mineral
content, and increased bone area.
By contrast, the body composition of adult male mice who had
received penicillin after weaning and of female mice who had received
penicillin at either phase of development (just before birth or after
weaning) was more similar to that of controls. The results suggest that
even transient changes to the microbiota caused by limited exposure to
low-dose penicillin during a specific time window during development may
have a sex-specific long-term effect on body composition."
Your Gut Bacteria and Your Waistline Go Hand-in-Hand
One 2011 study27
shed light on the mechanisms by which antibiotics can promote obesity.
It found that 18 months after antibiotics are used to eradicate H. pylori bacteria, there is a:
- Six-fold increase in the release of ghrelin (the "hunger hormone") after a meal
- 20 percent increase in leptin levels (leptin is a hormone produced by fat tissue)
- 5 percent increase in body mass index (BMI)
Levels of ghrelin should ordinarily fall after a meal to
signal your brain that you're full and ready to stop eating; an increase
would therefore essentially tell your brain to continue eating, leading
to weight gain. Further, the increase in leptin levels is concerning
because overexposure to high levels of the hormone can lead to leptin
resistance, which means your body is unable to properly hear leptin's
signals. The way your body stores fat is a highly regulated process that
is controlled, primarily, by leptin. If you gain excess weight, the
additional fat produces extra leptin that should alert your brain that
your body is storing too much fat and needs to burn off the excess.
To do this, signals are sent to your brain to stop being hungry and to
stop eating. When you become leptin-resistant, your body can no longer
hear these messages -- so it remains hungry and stores more fat. You can
also easily become leptin resistant by eating the typical American diet
full of refined sugar (particularly processed fructose), refined
grains, and processed foods—which, like antibiotics, will upset the
balance of bacteria in your gut. Multiple studies have shown that obese
people have different intestinal bacteria than slim people, and that
altering the microbial balance in your gut can influence your weight.
Such research includes but is not limited to the following:
Research by Dr. Martin Blaser found that mice fed antibiotics (in
dosages similar to those given to children for throat or ear
infections) had significant increases in body fat despite their diets
remaining unchanged.28 |
One 2011 study29 showed that rats given lactic acid bacteria while in utero through adulthood put on significantly less weight
than other rats eating the same high-calorie diet. They also had lower
levels of minor inflammation, which has been associated with obesity. |
Babies with high numbers of Bifidobacteria and low numbers of Staphylococcus aureus
– which may cause low-grade inflammation in your body, contributing to
obesity – appeared to be protected from excess weight gain in a 2008
study.30 This may be one reason why breast-fed babies have a lower risk of obesity, as Bifidobacteria flourish in the guts of breast-fed babies. |
Two studies found that obese individuals had about 20 percent more of a family of bacteria known as Firmicutes, and almost 90 percent less of a bacteria called Bacteroidetes than lean people. Firmicutes
help your body to extract calories from complex sugars and deposit
those calories in fat. When these microbes were transplanted into
normal-weight mice, those mice started to gain twice as much fat. |
In 2010, researchers found31
that obese people were able to reduce their abdominal fat by nearly
five percent, and their subcutaneous fat by over three percent, just be
drinking a probiotic-rich fermented milk beverage for 12 weeks. |
Probiotics (good bacteria) have been found to benefit metabolic syndrome, which often goes hand-in-hand with obesity. |
Probiotics may also be beneficial in helping women lose weight after childbirth when taken from the first trimester through breastfeeding. |
Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics
Fortunately, some farmers and scientists have started investigating
various plant extracts, hoping to find alternatives to antibiotic drugs.
Essential oils have antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antifungal
properties, rendering them useful in various areas of food production. A
recent article in The Atlantic32
discusses the experimental use of essential oils to combat disease and
pests. Mounting research also suggests they may be potent enough to
address diseases like cancer.
According to The Atlantic:
"Numerous recent studies—including several done by the USDA—have
shown great promise in using essential oils as an alternative to
antibiotics in livestock. One of their studies, published in October
2014 in the journal Poultry Science,33
found that chickens who consumed feed with added oregano oil had a 59
percent lower mortality rate due to ascites, a common infection in
poultry, than untreated chickens.
Other research,34
from a 2011 issue of BMC Proceedings, showed that adding a combination
of plant extracts—from oregano, cinnamon, and chili peppers—actually
changed the gene expression of treated chickens, resulting in weight
gain as well as protection against an injected intestinal infection. A
2010 study35 from Poultry Science produced similar findings with the use of extracts from turmeric, chili pepper, and shiitake mushrooms."
Scientists have also compared the effectiveness of antibiotics versus
various essential oils. Rosemary and oregano oil, for example, resulted
in the same growth rate in chickens as the antibiotic avilamycin.36
The oils were effective against pathogenic bacteria as well. Essential
oil blends have also been found effective against salmonella in
chickens.37 According to Dr. Charles Hofacre, a professor at the University of Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicine, "There
is some strong evidence that [essential oils] are functioning by both
an antibacterial action in the intestine and also some have an effect to
stimulate the intestinal cells ability to recover from disease more
quickly–either by local immunity or helping keep the intestinal cells
themselves healthier."
In humans, a combination of thyme and clove essentials oils was found
to be as effective against bacterial vaginosis as standard antibiotic
treatments.38 Researchers have also successfully treated staph infection with tea tree oil vapors.39
An added boon: Essential oils appear to be less likely to cause
resistance, for the fact that they contain hundreds of different
chemical compounds, which makes bacterial adaptation more difficult.
Healthy Gut Bacteria Cannot Coexist with Antibiotics
Antibiotics can save your life if you develop a serious bacterial
infection, but it's important that you resist the urge to ask your
physician for a prescription for every infection you come down with,
especially viral infections such as the common cold and influenza.
Antibiotics are useless against viral infections. Remember that whenever
you use an antibiotic, or if you're frequently eating treated animal
foods, you're:
- Decimating your microbiome, which will need time and proper diet
and/or a probiotic supplement to restore rebalance. An unbalanced
microbiome can contribute to both obesity and disease
- Increasing your susceptibility to developing infections with resistance to that antibiotic -- and you can become the carrier of this resistant bug and even spread it to others
It's quite clear that the foods you eat are a major source
of chronic low-dose exposure to antibiotics, so to protect your gut
bacteria you need to buy antibiotic-free, organically raised meat and,
yes, even produce. Conventionally farmed vegetables are often grown in
fertilizer derived from factory-farmed animal waste and sewage sludge,
which is yet another source of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
My bottom-line recommendation is to take decisive action for yourself
and your own family, and seek out trusted sources of food that do not
use antibiotic pesticides and/or antibiotic growth promoters. Your best
bet for finding healthy food is to connect with a local farmer that
raises animals according to organic standards, allowing them to roam
freely on pasture. Some grocery chains also offer 100% grass-fed meats
these days. In the US, the following organizations can help you locate
farm-fresh foods:
Weston Price Foundation40
has local chapters in most states, and many of them are connected with
buying clubs in which you can easily purchase organic foods, including
grass-fed raw dairy products like milk and butter. |
Local Harvest
-- This Web site will help you find farmers' markets, family farms, and
other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy
produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies. |
Farmers' Markets -- A national listing of farmers' markets. |
Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals
-- The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised
meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns,
and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada. |
Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) -- CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms. |
FoodRoutes
-- The FoodRoutes "Find Good Food" map can help you connect with local
farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their
interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSAs, and
markets near you. |
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