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Phoenix666 writes:

Swedish exchange students who studied in India and in central Africa returned from their sojourns with an increased diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in their gut microbiomes. The research is published 10 August in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

In the study, the investigators found a 2.6-fold increase in genes encoding resistance to sulfonamide, a 7.7-fold increase in trimethoprim resistance genes, and a 2.6-fold increase in resistance to beta-lactams, all of this without any exposure to antibiotics among the 35 exchange students. These resistance genes were not particularly abundant in the students prior to their travels, but the increases are nonetheless quite significant.
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in fact, the increases the investigators observed in abundance and diversity of resistance genes occurred despite the fact that none of the students took antibiotics either before or during travel. The increase seen in resistance genes could have resulted from ingesting food containing resistant bacteria, or from contaminated water, the investigators write. Providing further support for the hypothesis that resistance genes increased during travel, genes for extended spectrum beta-lactamase, which dismembers penicillin and related antibiotics, was present in just one of the 35 students prior to travel, but in 12 students after they returned to Sweden.

Original Submission