The ability of pathogens that infect humans to become resistant to antibiotics is of concern to scientists and poses a serious threat to public health. Scientists have noticed that even in people who have not recently taken antibiotics, but living in countries with high levels of consumption of these drugs, strains of pathogens are more antibiotic resistant than in countries with low levels of antibiotic use, reports Science Alert..

A study conducted by the Earlham Institute and the Quadrum Institute in the UK, together with an international team of scientists, has shown that any bacteria and other microorganisms that settle in and on the human body can be a source of antibiotic resistance.. It is likely that the use of antibiotics by people around us can affect us directly..

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“Even a healthy person who has not recently taken antibiotics is constantly bombarded with microbes from people or pets with which he interacts, which can lead to the fact that resistance genes are introduced into their own microbiota,” said one of the authors of the work..

According to him, if a person lives in a society with a high level of consumption of antibiotics, this leads to an increase in the number of resistance genes in his microbiome..

As the publication notes, earlier research has focused mainly on the study of antibiotic resistance of microbes that cause infections in humans.. But microbes are "

Due to the ease of transfer of resistance genes, the use of antibiotics can affect the entire microbiome, not just the pathogens that need to be eradicated.. As a result, the resistome, a set of resistance genes found in the microbiota, is an important avenue for research..

The intestinal microbiome plays a special role in digestion and the formation of immunity.. Millions of different microbes live in the human digestive tract, more of them are found here than anywhere else in the body.. The authors of the study suggested that microbes living in the gut may play an important role in the formation of antibiotic resistance..

The team analyzed 3,096 gut microbiome samples from people from 14 different countries to learn more about the impact of antimicrobials on the gut microbiome, focusing on samples from people who weren't taking antibiotics to get a "

The study showed that the number and diversity of antimicrobial resistance genes in people who did not take antibiotics depend on the level of consumption of such drugs in society..