Taking antibiotics may boost childhood obesity

Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:44PM GMT

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Children who take a lot of antibiotics during repeated courses are threatened by greater risk to become obese, new research says.

The research carried out by the scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Bloomberg School of Public Health discovered an association between antibiotics and body’s variety of bacteria.
They found that exposure to different forms of antibiotics including medication, food or even tap water could clear the body from some of the beneficial bacteria that may protect people from chronic diseases.
Human body plays hosts to an ecosystem of 100 trillion microbes, known as the "microbiome,"
The researchers monitored over 64,500 American children between 2001 and 2013, while they were followed up until they reached five years old, according to the study report published in JAMA Pediatrics.
"Almost 70% of the kids had been prescribed two courses of antibiotics by the time they were 24 months old."

The investigation revealed that those children with the prescription of taking four or more courses in this time were at a 10% higher risk of obesity at the age of five than kids who had been given less medication.
Meanwhile, the type of antibiotics also appeared to have effects on the result, researchers reported.
"Those children who were given drugs targeted at a particular bug were less likely to put on weight, while those took a broad-spectrum antibiotic were more likely to have a higher body mass."
"We think after antibiotics some of the normal bacteria in our gut that are more efficient at nudging our weight in the right direction may be killed off and bacteria that nudge the metabolism in the wrong direction may be more active," said Prof Charles Bailey at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It is possible that antibiotics are one of many factors that contribute to weight gain in children, along with diet and activity levels," Bailey also noted.