No Association Between Early Antibiotic Use and Risk for Diabetes or Celiac Disease

Antibiotic use early in life has been blamed for the increasing incidence of autoimmune diseases. However, evidence for causality in both animal models and humans has been mixed.

This well-done study enrolled 8495 children from Finland, Germany, Sweden, and the U.S. to determine if the early use of oral ß-lactam or macrolide antibiotics is associated with the development of autoimmunity for type 1 diabetes (T1D) during the first 4 years of life. All children had a confirmed HLA genotype that is associated with risk for T1D. Care givers kept a record of each child's antibiotic exposure, probiotic use, and duration of breast-feeding from age 3 months to 4 years. A separate cohort of 6558 children was studied for the development of celiac disea…