The Mysterious Link Between Antibiotics and Obesity

[villager]

<snip>

As I thought more about the map, I wondered whether the prescription rates followed any demographic patterns. Lauri Hicks, a lead author of the study and a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told me that her team had initially expected to find certain correlations—for example, higher prescription rates in states with large elderly populations. But that didn't turn out to be the case. Take Florida, which has a sizeable elderly population, but only an average antibiotic prescription rate.

Yet Hicks' team did find one very strong correlation: The states with higher rates of antibiotic use also tended to have higher obesity rates. Take a look at this map of obesity rates by state and see how it reflects the antibiotics map above:

When we mashed up the data behind these maps, we confirmed the strong correlation between obesity and antibiotic prescription rates (we got an r of 0.74, for the statistically inclined). We also found a correlation between the states' median household incomes and antibiotic prescription rates: States with below-average median incomes tend to have higher antibiotic prescription rates. This makes sense, considering that high obesity rates correlate with low income levels. (You can see the data sets for antibiotic prescription rate, obesity, and median household income level here.)

Hicks and her team can't yet explain the connection between obesity and high rates of antibiotic prescription. "There might be reasons that more obese people need antibiotics," she says. "But it also could be that antibiotic use is leading to obesity."

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http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/11/maps-antibiotics-prescriptions-obesity-states

[phantom power]

1. I have a theory

recent research suggests that intestinal ecosystem problems can cause obesity. Antibiotics fuck up intestinal flora.

[villager]

2. It's a good theory -- I think there's much we don't understand about intestinal flora

...and its link to health, and how our general barrage of medicines and food additives affect it.

Them?

[Aristus]

3. I will ask all of you again: Please don't insist on antibiotics when you have a cold!

Or other viral upper respiratory infection.

Just last Friday, I had a patient with a classic-presentation viral URI that she was having trouble kicking. I got a history from her, and since her previous appointment 2 weeks before, during which she was given some symptomatic treatment, she has not slowed down for bed rest, continuing to work long hours (hers is a white-collar job that offers sick-leave); and her household of spouse and three kids are all ill with her virus. So the conditions under which a rapid recovery might happen are absent.

She was convinced that all she needed was some antibiotics. I had a hard time persuading her that antimicrobials would not touch her virus, and eventually succeeded after prescribing some heavy-duty symptomatic treatment.

But people, please don't insist on antibiotics! People trained in medicine know what is appropriate to prescribe antibiotics for, and what is not. Sure, there are some providers who will give you a scrip for antibiotics to get you to shut up and go away. But most ethical, skilled providers won't.

[SunSeeker]

6. Yes, and taking antibiotics for a virus could make it worse, right?

I have been told by my doctor that antibiotics kill the bad bacteria if that is the problem, but they also kill the good bacteria that help your immune system. That is fine if you have a bad bacterial infection that is making you sick and your body needs help to kick it. But if you don’t have strep or some other bacterial infection, antibiotics could impede your recovery from the viral infection.

[Rozlee]

4. What link between livestock antibiotic use and obesity rates?

Do poor people eat more meat or more carbs these days? In my struggling years as a single mom, I tended to buy more cheap ground beef, the type that had 20 percent fat because I couldn't afford expensive salad greens and the type of healthy low-cal, whole grain and organic food I buy today. Chicken breasts and sea food was a delicacy. But so much of the beef and pork we eat today is heavily treated with antibiotics. In fact, I read somewhere that our livestock accounts for the majority of antibiotic use in the country.

[villager]

5. Good question -- plus the "waste" from industrial meat production

...getting into water tables, adding more antibiotics (and pesticides, etc.) there too...