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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