Antibiotics aren’t only used by farms to prevent infection; they’re also used to plump up chickens, cows, pigs, and turkeys. Now, researchers suggest that antibiotics given to young children could have the same weight-gaining effect.
However, leaders in the field are unconvinced by the data. Microbiologist David Relman, who investigates the microbiome at the Stanford University School of Medicine told ScienceNOW that the work is "provocative" but that some of the data are "a bit vague and unclear."
Some researchers think that low dose antibiotics make farm animals heftier by altering their gut microbiota, which is responsible for digesting food and making nutrients available to the host. (For a critical review of this practice, see “Antibiotics in the Animals We Eat.”) When researchers from New York University School of Medicine gave young mice low doses of antibiotics, on a schedule similar to that given to farm animals, they saw the ...
