Medical News
Ibuprofen has been linked to changes in bacteria in a lab experimentclubfoto/Getty
For decades we’ve known that bacteria can evolve resistance to antibiotics but now it looks like other types of common drugs, including ibuprofen, may also help drive antimicrobial resistance.
Bacteria are able to swap genetic material with completely different strains, a process that has enabled drug resistance genes to rapidly spread to many types of microbe. Now a team in Australia has found that five commonly-used non-antibiotic drugs appear to encourage gene swapping between bacteria.
The study looked at six drugs: ibuprofen and two other anti-inflammatories …