Comment by zach | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zach | Hacker News Reader

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We're slowly coming to understand that antibiotics are very unkind to our gut flora and are a prime suspect in subsequent weight gain. Post-antibiotic diet could be a critical intervention to keep patients from falling into the grasp of obesity.

A NY Times article earlier this year gives a background on how the rise of antibiotics has been accompanied by a rise in weight among animals and humans alike:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-dru...

Kids in particular seem to be at risk. A recent study of 64,000 kids has associated repeated antibiotic exposure before age 2 with early childhood obesity:

http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=19098...

It's good we're investigating diet-based therapy, so patients can someday hear their doctors say "after finishing this broad-spectrum antibiotic prescription, you [or your child] should eat like this for this amount of time to restore digestive health."

If you look at your JAMA article, you'll see that the connection between antibiotic use and childhood obesity is pretty small. My question would be, we've had broad-spectrum antibiotics around since WW2 (broad spectrum being the one the paper flags), yet obesity is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Also, they also found a connection between obesity and "Steroid use, male sex, urban practice, public insurance, Hispanic ethnicity, and diagnosed asthma or wheezing were also predictors of obesity; common infectious diagnoses and antireflux medications were not."

Cipro did wonders on my intestinal tract, effectively killing everything including the good. Had nine days of that to fight an under the skin infection/etc. Months after I started having problems with food, restrooms were becoming my second home and my commute was planned around easy access to them. You never want to experience life where one bit of food can send you off.

Six doctor visits, stool and blood tests later, the doctors found what moved in. New antibiotics and replenishment medicines, diet with lots of probiotics, and within a few months I was back to mostly normal.

My story is simple, if you end up on harsh antibiotics it can change your life. Plan for it.

>Six doctor visits, stool and blood tests later, the doctors found what moved in.

Something other than C. Diff? Would you mind sharing what it was?

All the more sobering knowing that antibiotics are routinely given as "placebo" to patients with no bacterial infection.

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