Do Antibiotics Contribute To Obesity?

sciencehabit writes "Farmers have long used antibiotics to make cows, pigs, and turkeys gain weight faster. Now, scientists claim that receiving antibiotics early in life may also make children grow fat (abstract). The researchers believe the drugs change the composition of the bacterial population in the gut in a crucial developmental stage that may have a long-lasting impact."

Comments

They Do, Just Not By Much

[eldavojohn]

No.

That's not exactly right. I read NPR's coverage of this earlier today and vastly prefer their title and interpretation of results:

Could Antibiotics Be A Factor In Childhood Obesity?

It turns out that it's a factor but it's likely a small factor quoting an expert from the NPR coverage:

"Although the effect was small on an individual level," Dr. Leonardo Trasande, the lead pediatrician on the study, tells Shots, "we predict that that this rise in body mass would increase the overweight population in the U.S. by about 1.6 percent."

And to summarize, this is not some over hyped stop using antibiotics trash, the conclusion is:

"We're not saying that children with severe infections shouldn't be treated with antibiotics," Blaser says. These findings just reinforce our need for judicious use of them.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Re:They Do, Just Not By Much

[PopeRatzo]

It turns out that it's a factor but it's likely a small factor quoting an expert from the NPR coverage:

"Although the effect was small on an individual level," Dr. Leonardo Trasande, the lead pediatrician on the study, tells Shots, "we predict that that this rise in body mass would increase the overweight population in the U.S. by about 1.6 percent."

It's not even a matter of the size of the overweight population, IMO. I think it's more a matter of the types of obesity we're seeing. It is common to see people who have gone way beyond "fat" or "obese" and have moved well into the category of comic book science-experiment-gone-wrong fat. I was looking at some family pictures going back to the Eisenhower Administration -weddings and stuff- and some photos from Riverview Amusement Park (which closed in the '60s), and while there are fat people there, you don't see the Jabba-size, extra blubbery, gunt-fat that you see today. People are fat now in places they were never fat before. Rolls on the neck and in the upper-arm and their ankles and along the sides of their heads. Slabs of fat along the tops of the feet that cover the shoes. Chins and jowls that lay outside the collar like blubber lapels. Hands that look like catchers' mitts. Butts bigger around than an innertube from a semi. Curtains of blubber from the shoulder to beneath the back of the armpit that look like they might be some kind of navigation flaps on a deep ocean creature.

If you ride the bus or walk down a busy street in a less-affluent area, you're going to see people today who would never have been seen in 1955 outside of a circus. There's a website where they show pictures from side-shows of the 40's and 50's and the fattest of the fat person exhibitions were smaller than folks you'll see every single day. Go over to Wal-Mart right now and just walk around the grocery section for 10 minutes if you don't believe me.

This isn't normal fat any more. There's something else going on. You cannot get that fat just by having an extra cheeseburger or too many oreo cookies. This is lab-accident fat. Freak fat.

I'm pretty sure we'll learn sometime in the next few years that there are some specific industrial pollutants (some which are probably common ingredients in processed foods) that are causing this strange effect. It can't be from overeating alone. There have always been people who overeat, but there were never the kind of mutant-looking fat people who are so common today.

Re:They Do, Just Not By Much

[metlin]

People don't just get fat because a random chemical made them gain weight.

You cannot violate the laws of thermodynamics -- people are fat because they eat more and burn less.

Look at people in concentration camps. They were experimented with all kinds of chemicals on them and yet, they look emaciated. The reason? They did not have enough food (the only exception is perhaps the Kwashiorkor syndrome which is caused by protein and nutritional deficiency and water retention, but even they look emaciated -- just with fat bellies and such caused by oedema).

As a society, we've made it incredibly easy for people to consume a lot of calories with very little effort. That's why people are fat. People eat more when they should be eating less, people drive when they should be walking and running, and people do not part-take in any physical activities.

When was the last time you know when people you know played a game regularly? Some friends of mine and I play tennis regularly at a neighborhood park, and we are amazed at just how empty the tennis, basketball, soccer, baseball, and all the other courts are. Even on weekends with great weather.

When was the last time you could get a 4 oz or 8 oz drink? When was the last time you could ask for half or a quarter of the portion size? Last year, when my wife and I came back from traveling in Asia and Europe, we landed in NYC and went to grab some good old American food. I was amazed when the size of the soup and salad that were brought to me was at least 4x the size of a large portion in Asia and Europe.

People are fat because they've become lazy slobs who cannot do portion control and who do not give a shit about getting in shape. Let's stop looking for reasons and excuses and call it for what it is -- gluttony and sloth.

Farm Animals

[Anonymous Coward]

Farmers use antibiotics on cows, pigs, and turkeys because they can't digest corn properly which leads to excessive gut bacteria (the corn diet makes them gain weight), and due to the unhealthy living conditions of shoving hundreds to thousands of animals together in a cramped warehouse.

Re:Farm Animals

[Nos.]

Perhaps you should try eating some fruits and vegetables as well.

oh, That's why I'm fat?

[mekkab]

[looks at the 280 calorie coke bottle at my desk and two crumpled baggies of Cheddar Jalapeno Cheetos] Yep, That's it. Exposure to antibiotics at an early age. QED.

Re:No.

[Hatta]

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data". And for that matter, neither is the singular.

Sugar consumption makes kids get fat

[swb]

Followed very closely by a diet heavy in carbohydrates, thanks to a failed and scientifically baseless "low fat" dietary guidelines that promote a "low fat" diet high in carbohydrates.

It staggers me to watch fellow parents pour gallons of sugar down their kids throats -- "look, it's low fat and free from high fructose corn syrup!!!!" despite the fact that it contains apple juice as a "natural" ingredient, which is just injected for its fructose content -- it's like HFCS without the corn syrup.

If you don't want your kids to get fat, feed them eggs and sausage. If you want them to get fat, feed them juice, soda, and lots of grains and watch them swell like cows in a feedlot.

Re:No.

[swb]

Even portion size can be less of an issue if you are eating 20% or fewer calories in carbohydrates. Fat intake will produce a leptin response, making you feel full and not wanting to eat any more.

Carbohydrates, especially fructose (as Dr. Lustig points out in "Bitter Truth) suppresses the leptin response -- you don't feel full, the metabolization process of simple carbs just locks away the energy as fat accumulation and preventing you from using it for energy, making you even more hungry.

I went low carb about 8 months ago and I took the idea of "eat until you were full" seriously, thinking maybe I could knock back a couple of steaks at a time. I couldn't; I lost all interest in eating once the full feeling kicked in.

Re:Oh goody.

[darkmeridian]

Just what we need .. yet another self-righteous poster who didn't bother to read the freaking article. No one is saying that antibiotics are the sole or even the major reason that children are fat. No one is denying that over-eating is a huge reason for obesity. All these scientists have concluded is that, based on their analysis of evidence, babies who were exposed to antibiotics within the first six months of life were more prone to being overweight at 10, 20, and 38 months of age. They only reported this correlation, and cautioned that there was no causal relationship yet.

But no matter. Random Internet poster dude who didn't read the article is going to rail against anti-medicine when it is actually he who is railing against a team of scientists making a scientific conclusion.