A new study suggests children two years old and younger who are exposed to antibiotics are at an increased risk of becoming obese later in life.
Researchers from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia led by Charles Bailey looked at the data of 64,580 children who visited hospitals at least once before they turned two. The team checked whether these children were given antibiotics, then tracked the development of obesity over the next three years of their lives.
The analysis failed to establish a link between obesity and the use of first-line antibiotics such as amoxicillin. But the researchers did find a correlation between obesity and broad-spectrum antibiotics, including carbapenems, piperacillin, and streptomycin.
First-line antibiotics are usually prescribed to treat certain diseases while broad-spectrum antibiotics act against a wide range of diseases.
"Treating obesity is going to be a matter of finding the collection of things that together have a major effect, even though each alone has only a small effect," said senior author Patricia DeRusso, M.D., director of the Healthy Weight Program and vice president of Medical Staff Affairs at Children's Hospital, in a press release. "Part of what we are exploring in this study is one of those factors that we can possibly modify in the way we take care of kids and make it better."
Bailey recommended a reevaluation of the existing pediatric care policies to minimize the use of broad-spectrum drugs due to the increased obesity risk.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), childhood obesity has both immediate and long-term effects on health. Obese children are 70 percent at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases later in life, diabetes, and bone and joint problems. Childhood obesity rates in the United States has more than doubled in the past 30 years and is projected to increase.
The study was published in the Sept. 29 issue of JAMA Pediatrics.
