
Early antibiotic use 'may predispose children to weight gain and asthma' - junto
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/26/early-antibiotic-use-may-predispose-children-to-weight-gain-and-asthma
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ashark
I wish it were easier to avoid their use, but without antibiotics my kids
would spend like half the year with ear infections, miserable (and making
everyone else miserable) and lethargic at best. Then there's strep—last year I
discovered the hard way how dangerous that can be if you don't treat that
_very_ soon after symptoms start (I'd never had it, didn't realize what was
happening/how serious it was at first)

~~~
overcast
I had strep every year around the holidays as a kid. It's a common, and easily
treatable infection, but extremely dangerous left alone. It can go from bad to
really bad, quickly, especially when it travels to the heart.

~~~
maxerickson
The danger to the heart is believed to be from the immune response to the
strep, not the infection directly.

[http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rheumatic-
feve...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rheumatic-
fever/basics/causes/con-20031399)

~~~
overcast
Symptoms are the bodies response to infection. Regardless of what happens,
because strep is present, then it occurs.

~~~
maxerickson
The point of my comment was that the infection does not travel to the heart.
The immune response to the infection in the throat ends up having consequences
elsewhere.

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esaym
I've noticed that if I am very sick, even with antibiotics, I don't start
getting better until 5+ days after first dose. Wondering what my body would
naturally do with those five days, I've basically stopped going to the doc and
just fight it off myself.

Really haven't noticed a difference. I'm talking stuff like ear pain, pink
eye, severe sinus pain, ect. Don't know what I've had (since I didn't go to
the doc, though I don't think they know half the time anyway..), but I
survived it.

I'm sure there are valid reasons for antibiotics, but they are clearly over
prescribed.

~~~
overcast
You're an outlier then. Within twenty-four hours of taking an antibiotic, I've
always felt MUCH better. I will agree they are over prescribed, especially for
things that don't even respond to antibiotics(viruses). But there is no
denying their effectiveness.

~~~
bosdev
How do you know he's the outlier?

~~~
sithadmin
Occam's razor. Antibiotics aren't over-prescribed/over-used just for giggles.
It's because when they're actually necessary, they usually improve one's
health quite quickly.

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gmarx
Whenever you read the word "may" in the title of an article about a scientific
study, you should mentally fill in the end..."then again, it may not"

~~~
fiatjaf
Unbelievable.

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wiredfool
I wonder if there's a correlation between kids with asthma/weight gain and
pre-labor antibiotics given to the mother to control Group B strep.

That seems like it could be the sort of study that could be done based on a
medical records search, as the data should be recorded. (not that it's easy to
get the data...)

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refurb
Antibiotics were first discovered around WW2. Use of antibiotics was rampant
in early years (it's come down since then, but is still excessive).

Why do we see a rise in obesity only in the last 20-30 years?

~~~
TylerE
One of my pet theories is that is has to do with the decline in cigarette
smoking.

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blakesterz
It's funny, I've seen this before and my experience is the exact opposite.
I've got 2 kids that were on what feels like a million antibiotics when they
were young, one's thin, one's average. I've got a 3rd kid was NEVER on them at
all, he's obese. I know this and other studies are population averages and all
that, but it always surprises me when my experience is the exact opposite.
Something to do with what gut microbes were killed or something?

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andy_ppp
Killing gut microbes considered harmful...

~~~
SteveNuts
What?

~~~
andy_ppp
I think a lot of people are suggesting these days that interfering with gut
biome with things such as anti biotics can have far reaching effects on the
rest of your system.

Maybe you don't agree with this but I think there is research suggesting, for
example, having the wrong gut bacteria can make you more likely to be over
weight, be a factor heart disease and even diseases like Alzheimer's are
implicated.

~~~
chillwaves
Even depression. If you read about candida or yeast overgrowth, it is believed
to cause some kind of inflammation which might be linked to depression.

~~~
charlieflowers
Careful though. There is a lot of pseudoscience and quackery around candida
and yeast.

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rdmcfee
It's an interesting hypothesis but unfortunately a cohort study with no
randomized control and n=236 isn't really meaningful. There's no control at
all here and the sample size is _tiny_.

~~~
kmm
236 is a massieve sample size and it is more than sufficient for showing an
effect here. The p-values are below 0.001, and while p-values aren't
everything, it's a strong indicator that the result is statistically
significant.

~~~
rdmcfee
Sure, the correlation is statistically significant. Without a control to infer
causality the results become much less interesting.

To infer causality in an epidemiological study such as this you need very
large cohorts with very specific results.

Even with huge cohorts you still have relatively indefensible results. The 7
country study is a good example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study)

~~~
moultano
Particularly since one of the connections they postulate is between
antibiotics and asthma, I'm curious how they control for respiratory
infections which seems like a much more likely common cause.

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antibiotic956
Interesting article and it is a coincidence in my life. My wife is pregnant
and has been diagnosed with Group B strep and the dr has said she will be
given Ampicillin during labor. I have some concerns regarding this, and now I
read this article.

Dr says that there is 1 in 1000 chances of the baby getting (very) sick. With
the antibiotics the chances are 1 in 4000.

I am wondering if anyone here has had experience with this.

~~~
hanklazard
Ped doc here. Group B strep can cause severe sepsis in neonates and I would
definitely recommend that she get 1-2 doses of an antibiotic while in labor. I
have not seen any good evidence that this sort of treatment causes any
problems down the road for the baby. Furthermore, if you consider the
mechanism that this paper suggests, it involves the manipulation of gut flora.
A neonate's GI tract is sterile when it comes into the world, and is colonized
over the first months to years of life. So since there are no bacteria to
affect, this proposed mechanism should have no relevance. Also, Amp's half-
life is just a few hours so no long-lasting presence in your baby. Don't mess
with group B strep--before we understood how to deal with it, it made a lot of
babies very sick and many died.

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PythonicAlpha
Good, that the usage of antibiotics is rising in cattle-breeding.

The blind usage of the fruits of progress is one of our biggest problems in a
world, where many problems of human beings have relieved by the same.

