Antibiotics & Weight Gain: Meds To Blame For Fat Kids?

According to a new study, children who regularly take antibiotics are likely to gain weight faster compared to other children who never used the drug. Moreover, it was learned that childhood antibiotics have a lasting effect on the child's body weight that may last until adulthood, The New York Times reports.

The researchers examined the electronic medical records of 163, 820 children ages 3 to 18. They considered the children's antibiotic prescriptions, body weight and height. The records, which covered pediatric exams from 2001  to 2012 revealed that one in five of over 30,000 children had been prescribed with antibiotics, seven or more times.

By the time those children reached 15, they gained 3 more pounds on average compared to children who did not receive antibiotics.

"Not only did antibiotics contribute to weight gain at all ages, but the contribution of antibiotics to weight gain gets stronger as you get older," said Dr. Brian Schwartz, first author and professor in the department of environmental health sciences at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Earlier studies have already established a link between antibiotic and weight gain. However, the new study is significant in a sense that it is based on the documented use of antibiotics based on the child's record. Whereas, previous studies only relied on the mother's memories of her child's antibiotic use.

According to American Heart Association (AHA) via Medical News Today, the cases of obesity in children have tripled from 1971 to 2011. This has resulted in a wide range of health problems when they reached adulthood. Some of these health problems include high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and elevated cholesterol levels.

Moreover, aside from the physical illnesses that these children have to face when they reach adulthood, they are also likely to experience low self-esteem, depression and negative body image.

The New York Times stressed that scientists have already known for years that antibiotics use promote weight gain in livestock. For this reason, large food producers include low doses of antibiotics in the diet of their poultry.

The recent study associating antibiotics with weight gain is not encouraging parents to totally keep their children away from this medication, given that there are cases when some bacterial illnesses can be life threatening without antibiotic.

However, researchers stressed that they have documented that parents often want and pressure pediatricians to provide them antibiotic prescriptions for fear of infections and viruses that can't be cured with the drug.

The study is published in the International Journey of Obesity.