Everyone has a theory about why Americans are so fat—and one of the most intriguing ones comes from homeopathy expert Dana Ullman, MPH, who suggested that our country’s collective weight gain may be directly related to our overuse of antibiotics. Many people will find his theory provocative. But Ullman, founder and president of the Foundation for Homeopathic Education and Research (www.Homeopathic.com) and coauthor of The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy (North Atlantic Books), may in fact have connected some dots between these two important health issues.
Ullman started by pointing out that antibiotics are already known to make animals fat. Farmers regularly dose livestock with antibiotics—the ostensible purpose is to ward off disease, but these drugs also disrupt metabolism of fat by altering the balance of microbes in the animals’ guts. The result is fatter cows, not to mention fatter profits for the food industry. Ullman suspects the same processes are at work when humans take antibiotics that end up disrupting digestion.
We already know that when it comes to antibiotics, we’re taking the bad with the good. There’s no question that these drugs can bring about miraculous recovery from illnesses that once claimed many lives. They play an important role in modern medicine. But scientists have long voiced concern that antibiotics are also destructive—especially when used indiscriminately, which they often are. Patients “demand” antibiotics whenever they have a sore throat or a cough, for example, and doctors too often comply. Research verifies that doctors write untold thousands of antibiotic prescriptions annually for people with colds, the vast majority of which are caused by viruses that antibiotics can’t fight! Remember that antibiotics are poisons, albeit useful ones.
While it was once controversial, no one today disputes that the excessive use of antibiotics has fueled antibiotic resistance and the evolution of superbugs such as antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and tuberculosis. Nor does anyone any longer argue with the contention that antibiotics disrupt intestinal function, and, as you’ll see, this is the crux of the antibiotics-obesity connection.
While they suppress bad disease-causing microbes, antibiotics simultaneously decrease beneficial flora, leading to unintended consequences. Women know, for instance, that taking antibiotics for an infection often brings on a vaginal yeast infection, the result of diminishing the organisms that normally control the body’s yeast population. That’s not the only such example, however.
Antibiotics are substantially eradicating Helicobacter pylori bacteria here in the US and in other developed countries. It was huge news when it was discovered in the 1980s that certain strains of H. pylori are linked with ulcers and gastric cancer. Yet eradicating H. pylori has some surprise consequences, since these bacteria are also involved in mediating ghrelin, an important hormone involved in hunger and fat regulation.
Also, it’s known that in the gut—most particularly the colon—many species of healthful bacteria are involved in metabolizing and storing fat and other nutrients. Digestion is disturbed when the normal bacteria balance gets changed, leading to problems such as constipation and malabsorption of nutrients higher up in the system. It’s not much of a leap to wonder whether all this is contributing to rising obesity rates.
Ullman is in excellent company with his questions concerning antibiotics and obesity. Research from diverse places, including Cornell University, Emory University, the University of Colorado and Stanford University School of Medicine conclude that antibiotics are related to inflammatory processes that eventually result in metabolic syndrome and diabetes, both related to excess weight. At the Marseille School of Medicine in France, investigators using data from the food industry concluded that antibiotics act as growth promoters in animals. The researchers speculate that the drugs might likewise be contributing to the obesity epidemic in humans.
One cycle of antibiotics will not make you fat, Ullman conceded. But physicians commonly prescribe repeated rounds of these drugs for recurrent infections, acne and more. By disturbing broad swaths of microbes, frequent use of antibiotics will eventually render your inner ecosystem far more vulnerable.
If you must have antibiotics, talk to your medical doctor or a naturopathic physician about how to restore the proper balance of bacteria to your body. If you are obese, you may also want to consider having your gut bacteria levels checked as well.
Ullman emphasized that antibiotics must be handled with great care and used sparingly. “Antibiotic” literally means “antilife,” he notes. Should it come as a surprise that they could be dangerous in more ways than we know?
