Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Nov 27, 2025 2 hours, 45 minutes ago
Medical News: Growing Concerns About Antibiotic Overuse
A new study from leading Canadian researchers is raising serious alarm about how common antibiotics may quietly worsen the health of people who later get infected with COVID-19. The research team from the University of Alberta, Alberta Strategy for Patient Oriented Research Support Unit, Alberta Health Services, and the University of Calgary examined health records of 445,646 adults and found a clear pattern that this
Medical News report highlights as both surprising and worrying.
New Canadian research shows that recent antibiotic use sharply increases the severity of
COVID-19 infections
The researchers discovered that people who took antibiotics within the three months before contracting COVID-19 were significantly more likely to end up in the emergency room, be hospitalized, or even die compared to those who had not taken antibiotics. The study also stressed that these risks remained regardless of whether the earlier antibiotic prescription was appropriate or inappropriate, pointing to the possibility that antibiotics may temporarily weaken the body’s natural defenses.
What The Study Found
According to detailed data from Alberta, 49,581 adults had taken at least one course of antibiotics in the three months before testing positive for COVID-19. These individuals showed dramatically worse outcomes within 30 days of infection: higher emergency department visits, more hospitalizations, and increased deaths compared to the 396,065 who had no prior antibiotic exposure.
One of the most striking findings was that exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics—the most powerful and commonly prescribed types—was linked to the worst outcomes. Patients in the highest-use group had more than double the risk of hospitalization or death. Even when researchers repeated the analysis using different time ranges—six weeks, six months, and twelve months before infection—the harmful pattern stayed consistently the same.
The study also noted a clear dose-response trend: the more antibiotics a person had recently taken, the worse their COVID-19 outcomes became. Younger adults were affected even more strongly, suggesting that the impact is not simply due to age or frailty.
Why This Matters
Scientists believe antibiotics disrupt the gut microbiome, an essential part of the body’s immune system. When the microbiome is disturbed, the immune response to viruses—including SARS-CoV-2—may be weakened, opening the door to more severe illness.
Conclusion
This large, population-wide analysis provides strong evidence that recent antibiotic use may place people at higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes. The findings support global calls to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions and highlight an urgent need for more research on how antibiotics alter immunity. As antibiotic use is projected to rise sharply worldwide by 2030, understanding this connection is critical
for public health planning and future pandemic preparedness.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal: Infectious Diseases.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23744235.2025.2585984
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