Giving antibiotics to children under 2 raises risk of obesity, says study

A new study now says that giving antibiotics to babies and toddlers given antibiotics makes them more likely to become obese.

The study, on 30,000 children found that those prescribed antibiotics during their first two years of life had a 26 per cent higher risk of obesity.

The study found that the longer the children took the drugs and the more classes of antibiotics they had taken, the greater the risk of obesity was.

Girls given four or more types of the drugs were 50 per cent more likely to become obese.

Researchers say that these powerful drugs can kill off important bacteria in the gut which help to regulate body weight.

Speaking about it, Dr Cade Nylund from the University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, senior author of the study said that there are too many unnecessary antibiotics being prescribed to infants who may not need them, for things like common colds.

He added, “We have to be careful about medications which might risk obesity because people who are obese in childhood typically increase their weight in adulthood, putting them in danger of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart problems.”

The survey showed there was a particular risk for boys and for children born by caesarean section, who are believed to miss out on important gut bacteria transferred through the birth canal.