New Study Reveals That Antibiotics Damage Our Immune System

A new Caltech study has shown that our intestinal bacteria determine which bacteria are beneficial and which are pathogenic. Even more significantly, it is the gut bacteria that trigger an immune response, not the immune system itself. This indicates that science and medicine need to completely rethink the current view of how the immune system operates. That's the intriguing conclusion that the paper published in Science reached.

Though unstated, it leads to another inescapable conclusion: The common use of antibiotics must be disrupting and harming our ability to distinguish pathogens from normal cells and bacteria. Each person's gut contains 100 trillion friendly bacteria that live in symbiosis with each other and with our bodies, consisting of a mere 10 trillion cells, which are descendants of and analogs to bacteria.

As California Institute of Technology's (Caltech's) assistant professor of biology, Sarkis K. Mazmanian, stated: "And yet, if you were to eat a piece of chicken with just a few Salmonella, your immune system would mount a potent inflammatory response".

Continuing, Mazmanian went on to specify that it isn't our immune systems that determine what's friend and what's enemy: the decision is not made by us. It's made by the bacteria. Since we are their home, they hold the key to our immune system. [Our study ] suggests that it's time to reconsider how we define self versus non-self. The dogma is that the immune system doesn't respond to symbiotic bacteria because of immunological ignorance: if we can't see them, we won't react to them.

The purpose of B. fragilis is to prevent the immune system from attacking the gut bacteria, which would otherwise be seen as invaders. That turns the entire view of our immune systems upside down. The dogma is wrong. It isn't the immune system, as we've previously defined it, that determines what's friend and what's enemy. It's gut bacteria that make the decision.

What the Study Discovered
The study used a system called whole-mount confocal microscopy to study mouse intestines. They studied Bacteroides fragilis, which they had thought lived in the lumen, the inner space within the intestines. Instead, though, they were found to live deep in the colon within the gut mucosal immune system.

The function of B. fragilis is to control the behavior of regulatory T cells (Treg cells). Unless otherwise instructed, Treg cells prevent the immune system from attacking anything, including its own body. If they don't function normally, then the immune system goes awry, resulting in autoimmune disorders, such as Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, lupus, and psoriasis.

B. fragilis effectively instructs Treg cells to accept gut bacteria as part of the self, so that they aren't attacked by the immune system. It shuts down part of the inflammation pathway. When a genuine invader appears, B. fragilis allows the immune system to attack it. If B. fragilis fails to do its job properly, then the immune system is left free to indiscriminately produce an inflammation response to attack invaders, including friendly gut bacteria or other cells in the body.

B. fragilis constantly protects the gut bacteria from the immune system. If it malfunctions or disappears, then there is nothing to stop the immune system from attacking the gut or other parts of the body, depending on the particular malfunction.
Implications

Mazmanian asks, "The question is, do patients get sick because they are rejecting bacteria they shouldn't reject?" This is blatantly backward! Rather than looking at the obvious, at where this study is clearly pointing an arrow, the blinders of the modern medical paradigm prevent a brilliant researcher from seeing the obvious:

The probable cause of much autoimmune disease must be the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. We are seeing an enormous upswing in autoimmune diseases, and it seems to coincide with the massive misuse of antibiotics. Antibiotics are known to indiscriminately kill gut bacteria. This study demonstrates that at least one type of gut bacteria prevents the immune system from attacking it. If it, or any other gut bacteria that might be involved with the autoimmune system, is being wiped out by antibiotics, then there is nothing to stop an autoimmune response. Therefore, the indiscriminate use of antibiotics should be considered the probable cause of so much chronic disease.

Chronic Disease - The Bane of Modern Existence
Just 30 years ago, some diseases that were rare have become commonplace:
• Diabetes was unknown in children, other than the very rare child born with it. Now it's rampant.
• Asthma is at epidemic proportions in children; literally, breath is being stolen from our young people.
• Cancer becomes more and more common every year.
• Crohn's disease was nearly unknown until a couple of decades ago, and now it's commonplace in young adults.
• Multiple sclerosis is another disease that's grown common, though was once quite rare.
• Lupus grows more and more commonplace, whereas hardly anyone had even heard of it a few years ago.
• Psoriasis grows more and more common.
• Autism is a growing plague, with estimates of one or more of each hundred children's lives circumscribed by gut misery, and mental and emotional challenges.

No, we don't know with surety exactly what's causing these conditions. In all likelihood, a combination of factors is involved. However, this study clearly demonstrates that the casual killing of gut bacteria must have a serious impact on the autoimmune system—and that leads to a conclusion that desperately needs to be acknowledged: unless and until antiobiotics can be clearly ruled out as a probable cause of these diseases, then we must act as if they are. Even if we can demonstrate that other factors are involved, that does not absolve antibiotics.

While we worry over drug-resistant diseases, acknowledged as the direct result of indiscriminate use of antibiotics, a far worse scourge is happening. The theft of health by autoimmune diseases is stealing the joy of life from a huge percentage, very likely a majority, of people. A likely cause of both drug-resistant and chronic diseases is the same: misuse and overuse of antibiotics.

For Further Reading:
• The potential for antibiotics to damage the immune system is described in one article presented by the National Library of Medicine, found at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7593395/
• Insider.com describes similar concerns in their article, https://www.insider.com/guides/health/do-antibiotics-weaken-the-immune-system
• The Wyss Institute describes a Harvard Medical study in their article "Antibiotics alter the infectious microenvironment and may reduce the ability of immune cells to kill bacteria", found at: https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/antibiotics-alter-the-infectious-microenvironment-and-may-reduce-the-ability-of-immune-cells-to-kill-bacteria/