Antibiotics and body weight

This Healthline article from Yahoo health, “Are Antibiotics Making Us Fat?” brings new light to an old topic, antibiotic use. Antibiotics are powerful drugs that have a vital place in emergency medicine, however because of their great power, they also have powerful side effects. Most people are aware of the emerging danger of antibiotic resistance, but what most people don’t realize is that 80% of our immune system is in our gut and directly affected by antibiotic use.

Studies have shown that antibiotics are being overused for the most common of ailments and that these prescriptions are not having a significant effect on the morbidity from these common conditions. In fact, there is a rising voice in the medical world that says to avoid antibiotics for such things as ear infections and even strep throat. Antibiotic use has been credited with saving millions of lives in the last century, but the ubiquity of its use has also had a considerable negative effect on the collective health of Americans.

While all of that is at least interesting, now we know how seriously it effects us…it makes us fatter!

To have a healthy life, our gut must be healthy. Antibiotic use disturbs our gut health and has many side effects that we are just beginning to discover. Perhaps it is time we begin to treat our immune system with respect, and support it [more coming soon on how to do this!] instead of trying to replace it.