Cutting down on antibiotic use to curb antimicrobial resistance may have the unintended effect of lowering rates of asthma, researchers say. 

In the Canadian province of British Columbia, asthma incidence among children aged between 12 months and four years fell by about 26% between 2000 and 2014, according to a paper in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. 

Over the same period, the proportion of children younger than 12 months who were prescribed antibiotics dropped by 35%, said the public health researchers, led by the University of British Columbia.  

To back the view that the two trends were connected, researchers looked at the incidence rates in each of the province’s 91 health districts and found a 10% increase in absolute antibiotic prescribing was associated with a 24% increase in asthma incidence.