Repeated Antibiotic Use Linked to Diabetes Risk

26 Mar 2015 --- People who have repeated courses of antibiotics may at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, researchers have discovered. The findings of a study of antibiotic prescriptions given out to a million UK patients, have been published in the European Journal of Endocrinology.

The study examined how many antibiotic prescriptions had been given to 208,000 diabetic patients, at least 12 months before they were diagnosed, compared with more than 800,000 non-diabetic patients of the same age and sex. 

The study showed that nearly half of the patients had been prescribed with antibiotics at some point, while the risk of diabetes went up with the number of antibiotic prescriptions a patient received. 

One of the researchers, Dr Ben Boursi from the University of Pennsylvania in the US, said he believes changes to gut bacteria triggered by taking antibiotics might explain their findings. 

“Our guts are lined with billions of bacteria and antibiotics can wipe some of these out,” he said. “Studies in animals and humans have hinted that changes to this "digestive ecosystem" might contribute to conditions such as diabetes and obesity.”

But some experts say repeated infections could instead be a sign that diabetes is developing. People with type 2 diabetes are prone to skin and urine infections, for example.