Your gut bacteria might make some vaccines less effective

Increasingly, evidence suggests that the community of microbes in our gut, called the gut microbiome, plays an important part in our immune system's response to vaccines, and that antibiotics might temporarily weaken it. But antibiotics did seem to have an effect in the smaller group without flu immunity, which produced fewer antibodies in response to the vaccine, and were less protected against one strain of flu. She said the trial, known as the Antibiotics and Vaccine Immune Response Study, would be "the largest study of its kind in the world."

Author: Jacinta Bowler

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