21 ms·
Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
- nightfly 9y ago"The Beach Bums study asked 300 people, half of whom regularly surf the UK's coastline, to take rectal swabs" Good double meaning there.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mrfusion 9y agoI wonder what the p value is. 9% vs 3% in a sample of 300 doesn’t sound that compelling.
- arkades 9y agoI couldn’t find 9 vs 3 in any of their published papers. Their most recent has 6 v 1.5 (p of .04) from a review of existing epi data, and not an original collection (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412017312345 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041201...)
- eutectic 9y agoabout .025: http://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/ztest/Default2.aspx http://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/ztest/Default2.aspx
- itronitron 9y agoYeah, it would be interesting to do the same study in California and see if the percentage was higher or lower, they could even break it down by closest major city, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.
- sshumaker 9y agoExactly my thinking. It's 0.0256 using a chi-squared test, which is definitely below the standard threshold.
- yesenadam 9y agoDownload link for the original paper: http://libgen.io/scimag/ads.php?doi=10.1016%2Fj.envint.2017.11.003 http://libgen.io/scimag/ads.php?doi=10.1016%2Fj.envint.2017....
- yesenadam 9y agoFor me, the most surprising bit was in the Conflicts of interest section: "Professor Hawkey [from the Institution of Microbiology and Infection, University of Birmingham] reports grants and personal fees from Eumedica, grants and personal fees from Pfizer, personal fees from Merck, personal fees from Novartis, personal fees from Magus Communications, personal fees from Bio Merieux, personal fees from Wyth, from Becton Dickinson, personal fees from Novacta, personal fees from Novolytics, outside the submitted work." Wow, I'm in the wrong business. /s
- ekianjo 9y agoAmazing that doctors can get away with NOT disclosing any of that information when prescribing any medicine to patients. I would certainly want to know what they get from X when they prescribe a certain drug with other alternatives around.
- mirimir 9y agoAs I understand it, they don't get paid for prescribing stuff. Rather, they get paid for persuading other physicians to prescribe stuff. Through speaking fees, payments for putting their name on favorable publications, and so on.
- scardine 9y agoIn Brazil they are forbidden by regulation to take money directly for prescribing stuff but pharmaceutical companies are allowed to sponsor their trip for a medical conference in Hawai and other subtle bribery. How they know who deserves that? There are companies devoted to gather this kind of information - source: used to be IT manager for a pharmaceutical company.
- clueless123 9y agoUnfortunately, I do not need to see a study to know that the waters near Lima (Where I live & surf) are full of crap.. That said, the healthy effects of the exercising on the sea must counteract the bacteria, because I don't know a healthier group than the surfing community around here.
- computator 9y ago> The healthy effects of the exercising on the sea must counteract the bacteria, because I don't know a healthier group than the surfing community around here. You're making a conclusion about cause and effect. It might be the case that the majority of people who take up surfing are extremely healthy since it's a physically demanding sport.
- npunt 9y agoExactly, the only people who’d continue surfing would be the ones whose immune systems could cope with the shock. If you kept getting sick after surfing you’d probably quit pretty quickly.
- bufferoverflow 9y agoIt's not that physically demanding. I've seen 3-4 year olds in Hawaii do it. Like in any sport, it depends on how far you want to push yourself.
- wellboy 9y agoYes, they do 20cm white water waves, which is very easy. Difficulty increases by 5 if you go to the 2 m green water waves, where it usually takes you 10-20 mins of constant paddling through 2 m waves until you're behind the break.
- maaaats 9y agoI've seen kids run, doesn't mean it's not physical demanding to run.
- aresant 9y agoNo coastal surf break that's close to civilization is safe from bacteria infestation but it is manageable. BUT sewage regulation can go a long, long way - take a look at the San Diego bacteria report http://www.sdbeachinfo.com http://www.sdbeachinfo.com - the regularly sampled coastal water is in general pretty good even though there was rain in SoCal last week. Meanwhile less than 30 miles away the surf breaks next to Tijuana, Mexico are extremely high bacteria - that's about par for the course - really sad to see: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-tj-spills-continue-20170914-story.html http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-t... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEyeCm0GVKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEyeCm0GVKg
- rcpt 9y agoThat sewage is gross but the waves that break right near the outflow look ass kicking https://youtu.be/gcMqr_vbInI https://youtu.be/gcMqr_vbInI
- el_benhameen 9y agoImperial Beach is supposed to have one of the best beach breaks in San Diego county besides Black’s, but even the mayor got sick from surfing it. Major bummer. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-tj-sewage-spill-20171101-story.html http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-t...
- intrasight 9y agoThen I had better stop surfing Hacker News ;)
- Jedi72 9y agoIt does seem to be full of shit lately. Even 6 months ago no way this article would get upvoted to front page. These mildly-interesting scienc-ey articles unrelated to computers/tech have no place on HN in my opinion, it's just noise. Victim of it's own success I guess.
- jasonkester 9y agoTotally worth it. Just your periodic reminder that Surfing is one of the most fun things that a person can do on this planet, as evidenced by the fact that so many people have essentially dropped out of society and dedicated their lives to doing it every day. If you live in a place near the water such as, say, the San Francisco Bay Area, and you have never tried surfing, you owe it to yourself to head down to Santa Cruz this weekend and give it a try. Minor warning, though, you'll likely end up wearing your own personal groove into that highway over the next several years as you find excuses to sneak in a quick one every single morning once you get hooked.
- Scea91 9y agoTried surfing last summer when I was at Bali. It was one of the best experiences of my life. In the next few days I also started scuba diving which I like even more. It's a shame I currently live in a landlocked country.
- malikNF 9y ago>>as evidenced by the fact that so many people have essentially dropped out of society and dedicated their lives to doing it every day. Sorry what? I hear people who do hard drugs that ruin their lives do the same thing. You know, drop out of society and dedicate their entire life doing it.
- Lewton 9y agoDrugs are also some of the most fun things that a person can do on this planet
- jasonkester 9y agoRemember that terrible career advice they used to give saying "do what you love"? Well, I always interpreted that as "arrange your life so that you can do what you love as often as possible", so I program computers for a living. It has the perfect combination of paying you four times as much as anything else for each hour you put in, and letting you hop from short term gig to short term gig. That gives you lots of free time that you can spend doing what you love. Including, for instance, dedicating your life to climbing rocks and surfing. I'm sure you could also dedicate your life to sitting in your mom's basement or on the beach in Belize smoking weed, for much less. But that's not what we're discussing here. The reason I mentioned Surfing above is that, until you try it, you might not realize that you want to re-structure your lifestyle to prioritize it over, say, contriving to lease the flashiest car your bank will give you credit for. Most people are doing that second thing most of the time. And lots of them could benefit from a bit of real fun in their lives.
- fiftyacorn 9y agoI bet open water swimmers have more - i remember doing open water and you always took a few mouthfuls of water by mistake during swims
- blablabla123 9y agoI wonder how many of them cook for themselves and buy only organic meat.
- mseebach 9y agoI couldn't really figure this out from the article: What's the link between antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and manure run-off/sewage? It's obvious that there'd be more bacteria, but what's the deal specifically with them being antibiotic-resistant?
- object505 9y agoProbably something to do with the fact that cattle are given loads of antibiotics, and are therefore more likely to host resistant bacteria.
- ivanhoe 9y agoAntibiotics are heavily abused to help the survival of farm animals that are kept in really bad conditions. One horror story from big farms around here where I live is that in summer they spray cows with water to cool them in overcrowded boxes that they're kept in. But problem is that those cows are then left all wet and will often catch a cold and develop a pneumonia if untreated, so farmers give them antibiotics regularly to prevent this. I know this for cattle farms first-hand, but I've heard that pig farms are even worse offenders.
- jessriedel 9y agoMy understanding is that the primary use of antibiotics in farm animals is for more rapid animal growth, not to prevent visible symptoms of infection. (It's not clear why antibiotics promote growth, but it's possible they are suppressing minor asymptomatic infections that sap calories.) In any case, the article is slightly misleading since the overlap between important human antibiotics and the widely used animal antibiotics is modest. http://animalantibiotics.org/antibiotics-used-farm-animals/ http://animalantibiotics.org/antibiotics-used-farm-animals/
- owenmarshall 9y ago> the overlap between important human antibiotics and the widely used animal antibiotics is modest. The overlap may be modest, but the evidence clearly indicates that the resistances as a result of them do impact important human antibiotics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194830/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194830/ > Increased virginiamycin use in Danish broilers during the mid-1990s correlated with a rise in resistant E. faecium prevalence, from 27% to ∼70% (7). Following the ban, resistance declined to 34% in 2000. Likewise, in Denmark, the 1998 ban on the use of tylosin in swine resulted in a decline in erythromycin (a structurally related macrolide) resistance, from 66% to 30% > The finding of bacterial cross-resistance between NTAs used in food animals and human drugs was aptly demonstrated with avoparcin (an AGP) and its close relative vancomycin (an important human therapeutic) when vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) emerged as a serious human pathogen. A connecting link between resistance in animals and humans was revealed when Bates et al. found avoparcin- and vancomycin-coresistant enterococci in pigs and small animals from two separate farms. Ribotyping methods showed that some of the patterns from farms and sewage exactly matched those of Enterococcus spp. from the hospital (24). The structures of the two drugs are similar: they are both members of the glycopeptide family
- chiefalchemist 9y agoIf the surfers are swallowing that much water why aren't more of them carries? Is it possible some of them for some reason have a natural "immunity"? Also, it's at least possible (in theory) it's not the water at all. What if, just an example, many of them have the same weed dealer? Perhaps not the ideal example. But life is complex and surfing might not be THE common tread for this situation. Or what if they ate ice cream? (Note: I know the difference between bacteria and virus. The link is simply to suggest the possibility of some other "trigger.") https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/the-curious-case-of-a-boring-sugar-that-may-have-unleashed-a-savage-plague/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/the-curious-case-of-...
- 66d8kk 9y agoI always remember when I first started surfing at the age of 10 in the North Sea. I was always sick and off from school with stomach bugs. My anecdote is hardly scientific proof but this article certainly supports my thinking that I've now got a stronger stomach than most due to surfing at such a young age in terrible water conditions. Over a period of a few years it just stopped and I was never ill again (after a surf)...apart from the dreaded and incredibly painful ear infections.
- jlg23 9y agoAnybody checked the original study? Having a group that fights against sewage pollution in the interest of surfers recruit the surfers sounds.. sketchy at least.