According to a study of 11,500 children, giving antibiotics during the first 6 months of a newborn baby can cause a slight overweight at 3 years. But this gap remains mostly temporary.
Antibiotic treatment in newborns, between 0 and 6 months, increases their risk, 22%, of having a higher body mass index at the age of 3 years than others, and this regardless of their diet , their physical activity and heredity. This result comes from a study (International Journal of Obesity), conducted by researchers at the New York School of Medicine.
Leonardo Trasande, professor of pediatrics, and Jan Blustein, epidemiologist and professor of public health, looked at the health records of 11,500 British children, born between 1991 and 92. And from their data, they found that the Exposure to antibiotic treatment during the first six of life was associated with a greater increase in body mass index in children between 10 and 38 months. “We consider obesity to be an epidemic caused in particular by a poor diet and a lack of exercise, but these results show that it is more complicated, explained Leonardo Trasande. Bacteria in our gut could play an important role in our calorie absorption mechanisms. Exposure to antibiotics, especially at the very beginning of life, could eliminate the good bacteria that facilitate our absorption of nutrients and allow us to stay thin, ”says the American researcher.
In recent years, scientists have sought to determine whether the intestinal flora, or the digestive microbiota, has a role in the onset of diseases, such as diabetes, chronic inflammatory bowel disease, or obesity. In 2012, a Inserm team showed in mice that the composition of this flora would condition the way in which the organism develops certain metabolic pathologies such as diabetes, apart from any genetic modification, sex, age and a particular diet.
So should we be wary of antibiotics in young children for obesity prevention? “No, that would be an exaggerated interpretation of their results, thinks Professor Patrick Tounian, pediatrician and nutritionist at the Trousseau hospital in Paris. What the authors show is that children who took more antibiotics in the first 6 months of life had a slight increase in their BMI by three years. Then, their study also shows that in the majority of cases, this difference in BMI does not last. “
Listen to Prof. Patrick Tounian, pediatrician nutritionist at Trousseau hospital: “ In the study, 80% of children who are fat at 2 years old do not stay fat. “
Another reason not to worry, the action of antibiotics does not necessarily explain the difference in BMI between children. “Maybe it’s just the fact of having been sick a little more often, so these children have grown a little less well over this period, taken a little less muscle… There is no need to be alarmed parents on antibiotics in relation to a possible risk of obesity ”, specifies Professor Tounian. In fact, the children obey a programmed curve of evolution of the weight, one sees it on the record of health. “When they are sick, they deviate a little from the curve, more generally downwards, testifies the pediatrician, but then, once cured, their weight changes again in the direction of the curve. So perhaps the antibiotics taken at the beginning of life temporarily modify the composition of the intestinal flora, that this perhaps has a punctual impact on the corpulence but that once the episode of the disease and the treatments have passed, constitutional programming takes over ”.
Last element, beyond the age of 6 months, the authors of the study no longer find any association between taking antibiotics and an increase in BMI above average. “Research on the influence of intestinal flora on our body is fascinating. But for the moment, the experts are not yet able to say if the modifications of the microbiota observed in obese people are the consequence or the cause of disease, or even both at the same time … Last June was held the European congress of obesity in Lyon, international microbiota experts were there, we asked them the question, testifies Professor Patrick Tounian. They couldn’t decide. “
In children, more and more studies tend to show that obesity is due to a dysfunction of the hypothalamus, the area of the brain which notably controls weight. This dysfunction can be of genetic origin, but not only.
Listen to Prof. Patrick Tounian: ” It revolves around the brain. “
But it remains to be understood why some children immediately express obesity while in others it appears in adulthood.
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