Chinese people have far more antibiotic-resistant genes in their gut microbes than Europeans, a study revealed. This is blamed on overprescription by doctors and the extensive use of antibiotics by farmers and food producers. It could mean antibiotics would be unable to fight serious infections, enabling them to spread quickly. The study, published in the science journal Nature Communications, found mainland Chinese have genes resistant to 70 major types of antibiotics in their gut microbes, compared to 49 in Spain and 45 in Denmark. Per capita use of antibiotics is among the highest in the world in mainland China, while in Denmark it was one of the lowest. Zhu Baoli, Researcher with the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) who led the study, said the most abused antibiotics were tetracycline, penicillin, amoxicillin and erythromycin. “This certainly increases the emergence of superbugs,” he said. Zhu added that Chinese doctors tended to prescribe many more antibiotics than their European counterparts, but a more serious issue was the unregulated use of veterinary antibiotics at poultry, fish and pig farms. The drug-resistant bacteria could easily be passed from animals to humans, he said. “Heaven knows how many antibiotics the farmers have been feeding to their livestock to reduce sickness and increase production every year,” he said.