Professor Colin Garner, Chief Executive of Antibiotic Research UK, told express.co.uk: “The composition of the microbiome i.e. the collection of microorganisms in the body particularly in the gut has been found to be very important in human health.
“Alterations in microbiome composition are associated with numerous health disorders like inflammatory bowel disease, malnutrition, metabolic disorders, asthma and neuro-degenerative diseases. We can now add to this list alterations in life-span.
“[While] researchers have found that giving antibiotics early in life led to reduced lifespan in treated animals, it needs to be established if this animal study is reproduced in humans.”
Scientists calling for the new antibiotics that are more selective in the bacteria they kill have developed new algorithms which they believe could help design potent new antibiotics from scratch.