This is kind of a shocking article. Remember when I talked about how they were fattening up livestock by the rampant use of antibiotics, sure there is something here...
New research suggests that taking medicine for ear infections might be related to a reckless appetite
Antibiotics have done wonders for extending human life by killing off deadly pathogens. But they target "a particular disease the way a nuclear bomb targets a criminal, causing much collateral damage," says Karen Kaplan in the Los Angeles Times. Incidental victims include a whole host of microbes that actually help us, and "our friendly flora never fully recover," argues New York University microbiologist Martin Blaser in the journal Nature. The unintended targets of antibiotics might also include our waistlines, according to new theories linking the drugs to a sharp rise in obesity. Here's what you need to know:
How do antibiotics hurt us?
Bacteria have lived in and on us as long as there have been humans, creating a symbiotic relationship. But that's changed over the past 80 years, Blaser says, because the development of antibiotics started disrupting the population of mostly beneficial bacteria that help us digest our food, metabolize vitamins and nutrients, and even fight off invading organisms. "Antibiotics kill the bacteria we do want, as well as those we don't," he notes.
And there's evidence of this?
Blaser points to Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium he's worked with for 26 years. Discovered in 1982, H. pylori "has been the dominant ancient organism of the human stomach since time immemorial," he tells The Scientist. Now it's disappearing. In the early 1900s, it thrived in the guts of all people; today, fewer than 6 percent of American, Swedish, and German kids have any trace of H. pylori. A likely cause, says Blaser, is antibiotics: A single course of amoxicillin or other antibiotics used to clear up, say, an ear infection, also wipes out H. pylori up to 50 percent of the time.
Is losing a little bacteria really so bad?
In the case of H. pylori, it appears to be a mixed blessing: The bacterium promotes gastric cancer and ulcers, which have gotten rarer along with the microbe. But Blaser's lab has also shown that kids lacking H. pylori are more prone to asthma, hay fever, and skin allergies. "And H. pylori is just one bacterium!" says Karen Kaplan in the L.A. Times.
Wait, what does this have to do with obesity?
H. pylori also affects the behavior of two stomach-producing hormones that control hunger — ghrelin, which tells the brain you're hungry, and leptin, which tells it you're full. If those hormones are thrown out of balance, your appetite probably is, too. Blaser says the rise in antibiotic use tracks with sharp increases in obesity. (Half of U.S. adults will be obese by 2030, according to a new study published in the journal The Lancet.) That's not proof the two trends are related, he concedes, but it's a fertile path for exploration.
NOW Read this article
"Most Antibiotics Fed To Healthy Livestock" and focus on THE SENTENCE IN YELLOW..
That said antibiotics have saved my life multiple amounts of times, before my weight gain I was on them constantly for chronic bronchitis [sometimes from constant illness I would get] and breathing problems.
Makes perfect sense to me. Now, obesity is genetic on my mother's side of the family--my great grandmother weighed 300 pounds, which is about what I weigh. Women on this line tend to have endocrine problems too. I took antibiotics as a child for earaches. It would be an interesting and worthwhile study. I'm dead set against giving antibiotics to healthy livestock anyway. Modern society is very sick in very many ways.
ReplyDeleteWhen I found out they fatten up the livestock with antibiotics, I wanted to throw up. They are doing so many things to endanger people out of profit. This society has grown very corrupt and horrible, even the last 10 years things have worsened considerably. You are right modern society is sick and growing sicker. My grandmother on fathers side, hit at least the mid 400s and maybe 500. Our family has several people over 300lbs and endocrine problems as well. Even my sister got severe opposite thyroid problem of me but one that causes weight loss, interesting how they will blame people on the fat side of that won't they? I do hope they do a study on this. They are setting the world up for a plague and more mega-viruses, I cannot afford all organic meat, it is so expensive though I try to buy some other organic products to eat and having to avoid MSG means no normal processed food most of the time. I even have to make stuffing from scratch when I make a turkey.
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