• Chlorinated water supplies don't disturb

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Thu Apr 14 22:30:46 2022
    Chlorinated water supplies don't disturb healthy gut microbiomes in
    young children
    Study addresses concern that adverse effects on microbiome could lead to longer term susceptibility to chronic diseases

    Date:
    April 14, 2022
    Source:
    Tufts University
    Summary:
    Scientists find chlorinated water supplies in Bangladesh have
    little effect on the abundance and diversity of bacteria in
    children's guts.

    This set of bacteria, or gut microbiome, plays an important role
    in maintaining health as children grow older.



    FULL STORY ==========================================================================
    More than 2,000 children die every day around the world simply because
    they lack clean drinking water, according to the U.S. Centers for
    Disease Control.


    ========================================================================== Engineers, including those at Tufts, have devised simple, low-cost
    ways to purify drinking water in low-income countries using chlorine,
    but a common concern is that adding chlorine to water could harm the
    beneficial bacteria in children's developing gut microbiomes, which play
    an important role in keeping health intact.

    Now a team of scientists led by Tufts, the University of California
    at Berkeley, the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh, and Eawag in Switzerland have found that using chlorine to
    treat drinking water in Dhaka, Bangladesh does not disrupt the normal population of bacteria in the digestive tract of children, in addition
    to reducing diarrhea and antibiotic use.

    The children's microbiomes -- tested from stool samples collected one
    year after the dispensers were installed -- had a similar diversity
    and abundance of bacteria as children who didn't receive chlorinated
    water. Some slight differences were observed, including the enrichment
    of beneficial bugs and increases in the presence of some antibiotic
    resistance genes, but those changes were small and the overall make-up
    of their microbiomes was similar.

    While chlorine inactivates microorganisms present in water during
    storage, transport, and delivery through the tap, this study suggests
    that it's not killing the good bacteria after the chlorinated water
    is consumed. In fact, by keeping the bad bugs out of the water supply, chlorination is allowing kids' microbiomes to thrive and do their good
    work maintaining health.

    That's very important especially in the first few years of life. The gut microbiome of infants is seeded at birth, then grows and stabilizes to
    its adult-like state by the time a child is about three years old. The progressive colonization by different bacteria in the microbiome may
    be important to several developmental milestones related to metabolism
    and weight maintenance, allergy development, disease susceptibility,
    and even mental health.

    "No doubt further studies may be helpful for understanding all the
    long-term health effects of drinking chlorinated water," said Maya
    Nadimpalli, research assistant professor in civil and environmental
    engineering at Tufts, "but this study makes it clear that the microbiome
    is protected after at least one year of exposure, so that the benefits
    of water chlorination -- which can save hundreds of thousands of lives
    each year -- continue to outweigh diminishing concerns about its safety."
    Amy Pickering, formerly of Tufts and now Blum Center Distinguished Chair
    in Global Poverty and Practice at the University of California, Berkeley,
    has been working on developing and field testing automated chlorination
    devices that are compatible with water infrastructure in Africa and Asia.

    "It's very encouraging that such a widely used and low-cost water
    treatment method doesn't harm children's developing microbiomes," said Pickering, who led the original trial and this study's research team.

    Nadimpalli, whose research is conducted in collaboration with the
    Stuart B.

    Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance at
    Tufts, notes that since children in Bangladesh are frequently exposed to pathogens, they are also treated with antibiotics at a rate five times
    higher than children in the U.S.

    "The treatments themselves have a harmful effect on diversity in the gut microbiome, and you end up with worse health outcomes and potentially
    more antibiotic-resistant pathogens," she said. "So chlorination can
    help reduce incidence of disease, limit use of antibiotics, and still
    keep microbiomes healthy."

    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Tufts_University. Original written
    by Mike Silver. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Maya L. Nadimpalli, Val F. Lanza, Maria Camila Montealegre, Sonia
    Sultana, Erica R. Fuhrmeister, Colin J. Worby, Lisa Teichmann, Lea
    Caduff, Jenna M. Swarthout, Yoshika S. Crider, Ashlee M. Earl, Joe
    Brown, Stephen P. Luby, Mohammad Aminul Islam, Timothy R. Julian,
    Amy J.

    Pickering. Drinking water chlorination has minor effects on the
    intestinal flora and resistomes of Bangladeshi children. Nature
    Microbiology, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41564-022-01101-3 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220414125114.htm

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