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Senior residential homes are breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, due to overprescription of antibiotics, a recent study says. Stool samples provided by Australian senior home residents contained bacteria with a wide range of genes linked to antibiotic resistance, researchers report in the Journal of Infection. For the study, researchers analyzed stool samples from 164 people living at one of five long-term senior care facilities in South Australia. Three of five (61%) residents had been prescribed antibiotics at least once in the prior 12 months, researchers said. The stool analysis revealed more than 1,100 unique antibiotic resistance genes conferring resistance against 38 different classes of antibiotics. These included 20 antibiotic resistance genes of high clinical concern. Overuse of the antibiotic doxycycline appeared to be the biggest contributor to antibiotic resistance. Prescription of doxycycline increased the odds of finding high levels of antibiotic resistance genes by nearly 15-fold, researchers report. Alarmingly, nearly all the seniors carried these resistant genes without displaying any symptoms of infection, researchers noted.