Friday, March 22, 2024

Do Antibiotics Make You Lose Weight

Antibiotics And Weight Gain

Do Antibiotics Cause Weight Gain?

Astonishingly, scientists have known for more than 70 years that antibiotics cause weight gain. In fact, in 1955, the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, sponsored a competition among their animal feed salesmen to see which one of them could gain the most weight, according to a New York Times article. After consuming antibiotic-laced food, these men stepped onto a scale in front of a crowd in a hotel ballroom. The point? To prove that antibiotics could fatten men up as well as cattle and hogs.

The evidence that antibiotics cause weight gain doesn’t just come from stories. Hundreds of studies all show the same thing. For example, a study published in 2018 compiled more than 12 different studies involving more than 500,000 children showing that children who took antibiotics as infants were more likely to be overweight. A more recent study published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology shows that these weight increases last into adulthood.

Questions Your Doctor May Ask About Loss Of Appetite

  • How long have you been experiencing a loss of appetite?
  • Do your symptoms interfere with your usual eating patterns?
  • How often do you eat during the day?
  • Are certain foods particularly appealing/unappealing?
  • How do you feel after eating?
  • Do you experience any other gastrointestinal symptoms?
  • Have you recently lost weight?
  • Have you experienced vomiting?

Antibiotic Use By Country

In May, though, the German government announced an aggressive reduction strategy. Denmark and the Netherlands have successfully reduced antibiotic use dramatically in the past five years. Meanwhile, the use of antibiotics in the U.S. and most other countries continues to increase. Congress did recently vote to increase spending on antibiotic resistance, but none of that money went to the Department of Agriculture. If worldwide use continues at the current rate, by 2030 there will be 211 million pounds of antibiotics going into livestock every yearcreating resistant bacteria and bleeding into soil, water, and the food system.

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At a cover price of $189.00, gastroenterologist David Johnsons newtextbookThe Gut Microbiome: New Understanding and Potential Translational Applications for Disease Management will reach many millions fewer people than Buzzfeeds video extolling some downright gloriouscheeseburger-stuffed tater tots. The first time Johnson told me his book title, I thought he was just describing the book. My next question was, Oh, whats it called? He repeated the title, somehow not sounding at all annoyed or confused.

Weâre animals, just like food animals, Riley said We give them antibiotics so they get fat. We are exposed to those antibiotics. It seems like a very common sense idea.

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That might still feel doomy. What if you told people that an antibiotic could slow their metabolism?

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Are Antibiotics Making People Larger

Overuse of the drugs seems to make us gain weighteven when we donât take them.

Doctors in Newport, Rhode Island, had to change one of their policies last year because they inadvertently made a young woman obese. At least, because they believe they possibly did.

A few months beforehand, the 32-year-old mother, who had never before been obese, had developed a vaginal infection. She took an antibiotic and, as expected, the infection went away. But shortly after, the womans stomach began to ache. A test of her stool found the presence of a lethal toxin.

Weâve long known that taking an antibiotic can inadvertently lead to another infection. In this case, it was an overgrowth of the bacterium Clostridium difficile in the womans colon. C. difficile is an opportunist that can exist in harmony with the other bacteria in our guts its only when that ecosystem is disrupted that C. difficile takes over and becomes deadly. It releases a toxin that causes a persons bowels to decay and expand and rupture, and the person dies. Last year in the U.S. alone, C. difficile killed 15,000 people. Most of the cases were precipitated by treatment with an antibiotic.

To escape this fate, the Rhode Island woman began treatment to kill the C. difficile, with another antibiotic. She also tested positive for another bacterial infection of the stomach, Helicobacter pylori. So the doctors treated her with two additional antibiotics. Despite all of this, her condition deteriorated.

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Antibiotics And Weight Gain: Here’s What You Need To Know

Antibiotics and Weight Gain

A 2013 U.S. study found that young children who regularly take antibiotics are at a higher risk of becoming obese than children who take fewer drugs. There have been several interesting studies done on antibiotics in relation to weight. One study done with mice found that those exposed to antibiotics gained twice as much weight as those mice on the same diet. Another study proved that antibiotics have a significant effect on the body’s hunger hormone, called ghrelin. It’s secreted primarily in the lining of the stomach and sends signals to your brain to make you want to eat, and when your ghrelin levels are high, you tend to eat more, which leads to weight gain.

We reached out to a real woman who’ve had a trying time with antibiotics. Susan shared with us that after consulting her doctor, she took his advice and started taking antibiotics to control her hormonal acne. After two months, she noticed a significant change in her weight. “Within a few months of taking antibiotics, I gained 14 pounds,” she says. “I knew this wasn’t normal, because this has never happened to me before in my life. I was at the highest weight I’d ever been in my adult life in such a short amount of time. And at that time I was already in a workout groove, going to the gym regularly, and eating healthy. I was so baffled and wondering why I was gaining so much weight.”

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Who Uses Prescription Weight Loss Medicines

Prescription weight-loss medicines are only for people who are obese. Most of these medicines are designed for people who weigh 20% or more above what is ideal for their height and body type. Or they are used with people who have a high body mass index . The BMI is a measure of your weight in relation to your height. Your doctor may prescribe you medicine to treat your obesity if you have:

  • A BMI of 30 or greater.
  • A BMI of 27 or more and you have a disease or condition that may be related to your weight .

Your doctor can tell you if prescription weight-loss medicines might be helpful for you.

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Although taking a probiotic is unlikely to cause harm, it may not exactly help to fight obesity. TNS

Dear Mayo Clinic: My friend insists that taking a probiotic supplement has helped her lose 50 pounds by keeping her gut bacteria in check. Will taking a probiotic, in conjunction with a balanced diet and exercise, help me lose weight?

It is true that the gut bacterial population in people who are obese differs from the population in people who are lean.

Whether this difference contributes to obesity or is a consequence of obesity is unknown.

So far, research hasnt yielded clear answers.

Although taking a probiotic is unlikely to cause harm, it may not help fight obesity.

First and foremost, it is important to understand that weight gain is essentially a function of energy imbalance.

You gain weight when you take in more calories than your body burns.

And there is some evidence that bacteria in the gut plays a role in how efficiently the body extracts energy from the food that reaches the small intestine.

Your digestive tract, also called the gut, contains trillions of bacteria.

Many of those bacteria play useful roles in the body, including metabolising nutrients from food.

While much of the bacteria in the gut are valuable, some are not.

Studies have been performed about how an imbalance between good and bad gut bacteria could contribute to certain medical disorders.

Although more research is needed, there is some evidence that probiotics might improve gut health.

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The Reservoir Of Antibiotics In Animal Feed Emerging Ar Gut Dysbiosis And Obesity

Apart from their usual indications, antibiotics have also been used as animal growth promoters for about 70 years . This term implies that the administration concerns low, subtherapeutic dosage and the main target is not the health benefit, but the animal growth. Due to the direct need for animal protein in recent decades with rising human populations, intensive animal husbandry exploited antibiotics as an essential weapon to ward off infection, but also to improve animal health. The intensification of farming led to a greater dependence on antimicrobials in order to convert more efficiently food to animal products and to minimize morbidity/mortality rates. As antimicrobials are added in food or water, they are omnipresent and leave residues in all the livestock and food chain, e.g., meat and milk, causing environmental contamination with potential toxic implications in humans .

Reviewed by Michael Espelin APRN

Bacteria Quantitation By Rt

Can Probiotics Really Make You Lose Weight? | What the Science Says

Feces samples were collected weekly from the mice and stored at 80°Cuntil use. Total DNA was extracted using the TIANamp Stool DNA Kit from Tian gen Biotech Co., Ltd., according to the manufacturers instructions. Escherichia coli8099 genomic DNA was used as a standard to quantify the bacterial abundance.

RT-PCR amplification of the extracted DNA targeted the 16S rRNA V6V8region using primers U968-F and L1401-R under the following cycling conditions: initial denaturation at 95°C for 60 s, followed by 40 cycles of denaturation at 94°C for 20 s, annealing at 55°C for 20 s, and extension at 72°C for 50 s.

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Does Drug Use Cause People To Lose Weight

Rapid weight loss can be a sign of addiction. Thats because certain types of substance abuse can lead to weight loss either directly or indirectly. For example, effects of cocaine abuse and other substances can produce profound metabolic changes, which can cause weight loss. Drug and alcohol abuse can also lead to behavior changes in eating habits, which can affect food intake.

Losing weight because of an addiction can be dangerous, and even deadly. Learn how drugs can lead to weight loss, and why thats never a good thing.

Do Antibiotics Make Kids Fat

More and more, research is showing us that childhood obesity is not only caused by genes, eating too much and exercising too little but by several, poorly understood factors. One thats been getting attention recently is the possible link between antibiotic use in early childhood and obesity later in life.

As the Director of Nationwide Childrens Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition, I can tell you we do not fully understand what, if any, impact antibiotics have on obesity.

Nationwide Childrens is involved in a national study of 1.6 million kids to study the potential link between antibiotic use in the first two years of life and obesity in later childhood. Its going to be about another year before we start getting some answers. Heres what you need to know right now about antibiotics and obesity.

How could antibiotics impact weight gain? In the last five years, scientists have made compelling discoveries showing that there may be a connection between the amount and type of bacteria in our gut and weight gain. When antibiotics are prescribed for an illness, they can kill both the harmful and helpful bacteria in the body. Its possible that when the levels of bacteria in the gut are disrupted, it sets off a chain reaction that alters the way fat tissue behaves.

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Colourful Foods For Microbiome And Metabolism

Colour
Blueberries, blackberries, prunes, purple grapes, purple cabbage, purple kale, plums Antioxidant properties, sustenance for beneficial gut bacteria

There is a lot of research that shows long-term weight gain is associated with a gut microbiome that lacks diversity not consuming enough dietary fibre is a contributing factor to this. Luckily, by increasing your intake of rainbow foods, you can support your whole body, a healthy weight, and your gut microbes all at once.

What You Should Eat During And After Antibiotics

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Antibiotics are a powerful line of defense against bacterial infections.

However, they can sometimes cause side effects, such as diarrhea and liver damage.

Some foods can reduce these side effects, while others may make them worse.

This article explains what you should and shouldnt eat during and after antibiotics.

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Gained Weight After Antibiotics Do These 4 Things

Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes

Jessica gained 23 lbs in the three months after she took a round of antibiotics. Her doctor told her that the antibiotics had nothing to do with her weight gain and suggested that she exercise more. She did. But despite spending hours in the gym each week and trying every popular diet, she gained an additional 35 lbs over the next four years.

According to Dr. Whit Roberts at Health Utah, Jessica’s story is a common one. “Not only do people sometimes gain weight after antibiotics like Jessica did, they often see the onset of other health problems such as yeast infections and many others.” He says often people see depression, frequent illness, IBS, and a host of other troubling symptoms.

New Study Suggests That Repeated Antibiotic Use Could Lead To Higher Bmi Long Term

Kids who receive antibiotics throughout the course of their childhoods gain weight significantly faster than those who do not, according to new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research.

The findings, published online Oct. 21 in the International Journal of Obesity, suggest that antibiotics may have a compounding effect throughout childhood on body mass index , a measure often used to determine whether someone is at a healthy weight.

Your BMI may be forever altered by the antibiotics you take as a child, says study leader Brian S. Schwartz, MD, MS, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Bloomberg School. Our data suggest that every time we give an antibiotic to kids they gain weight faster over time.

For the study, Schwartz and his colleagues analyzed Geisinger Health Systems electronic health records on 163,820 children between three and 18 years old from January 2001 to February 2012. They examined body weight and height and antibiotic use in the previous year as well as any earlier years for which Geisinger had records for the children.

While the magnitude of the weight increase attributable to antibiotics may be modest by the end of childhood, our finding that the effects are cumulative raises the possibility that these effects continue and are compounded into adulthood, he says.

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Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Are Antibiotics Making You Fat

Im writing from the annual meeting of the American College of Nutrition, and I happen to be the co-Chair for this years meeting here in Orlando. Im speaking on how medical providers can assess nutrient intake and cognitive function, and which nutrients improve brain performance.

The Gut/Brain Axis symposium of the meeting has captured my attention with compelling, new information. There is growing evidence that our gut bacteria impact many aspects of our health, from weight control, to inflammation, to your risk for neurological diseases, like memory loss, depression, autism, and attention deficit disorder .

How can gut bacteria impact your weight? Well, antibiotics generally kill off many healthy gut bacteria and allow an overgrowth of bacteria that cause us to gain weight. Bad gut bacteria produce chemical compounds that induce cravings, hunger, and inflammation. Additionally, inflammation will decrease your calorie burn rate all day long.

This doesnt just apply to people. This is why feedlots give animals antibiotics to fatten them up. Without any increase in food intake, feeding antibiotics increases weight gain in chickens, cows, and pigs. So dont be surprised if you gain weight after taking an antibiotic.

The other good news is that the healthier you eat, the less likely youll get sick, making it easier to stay active, productive, and feel fantastic.

I wish you the best of health!

Steven Masley, MD, FAHA, FACN, FAAFP, CNS

Strategies To Help Remember And Understand The Information You Receive

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If you know in advance that you are making a decision, take someone with you to your appointment: a second set of ears can be useful. However if you dont have someone to accompany you, or if you didnt think you would be making a decision, a good thing to do is to check you have understood as you go along.

Communication skills are an important part of health professional training and medical students are taught to ask patients to explain back to them what they have understood. Not all health professionals remember to do this, but it is still ok for you try this strategy.

This is also useful if you have already decided on a course of treatment, so you make sure you know what and when to take medications for example.

But is also important if you are going to go away and think about your decision and the options you have over a few days before making a decision.

Some ways to help with this are available here . Pen and paper are useful. You can either note the answers yourself or ask the doctor or nurse to do that for you. Click on the link and print out a sheet to take with you.

Another way to help you remember important information is to record the conversation you have with the doctor or nurse. This may seem odd, but patients who have tried this have said it is very useful. Ask your doctor if it is ok to do this to help you remember what he or she says and what you decide to do.

The other way is to take a recording device, these days most mobile phones have this option.

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