Does your child’s paediatrician often prescribe
antibiotics? Ask him to stop now
Doctors nowadays often
prescribe antibiotics for the smallest of infections but rarely do we realise
that antibiotics can damage our health in the
long run. And, a new study
convinces us to be extra careful when our children are prescribed antibiotics.
The study claims that repeated exposure to antibiotics early in life can hinder
the child’s development.
The study was conducted at
the NYU Langone Medical Center, and the researchers analysed female mice that
were treated with two classes of widely used childhood antibiotics.
What did the
study find?
Even if the study was limited to mice, lead author,
Martin Blaser said that his results are in line with other studies that point
towards effects of antibiotics on children. While studying mice, the
researchers observed that the mice gained more weight and developed larger
bones than untreated mice. These antibiotics also alter the microorganism
in the gut and intestinal tract.
Why should we limit
our antibiotics use?
Blaser explained that people use antibiotics
without considering it’s biological cost. In the United States, an average
child receives ten courses of antibiotics by age 10. The study also found that
short but high doses of tylosin-an antibiotic had most pronounced effect on
weight gain whereas, amoxicillin affected bone growth making them long.
Researchers extensively studied that DNA sequencing data and found that the
antibiotics changed the richness and diversity and the nature of the
composition of the microbiome in the gut. Blaser also revealed that these
antibiotics affect not only the bacterial species but also the microbial genes
linked to specific metabolic functions. This study can help design guidelines
for the duration and the type of antibiotics that children should be exposed
to.
The study is published online in journal Nature
Communications.
Source: www.thehealthsite.com
02.07.2015
Can eating chicken cause cancer?
The Goa chapter of the
Indian Medical Association is in talks with the state drug controller for a
study which could link consumption of commercially reared chicken called
‘broilers’ to the rise of cancer and hormonal imbalance, a spokesperson of the
association said on Wednesday. ‘The association had also spoken to state Food
and Drugs Authority officials to jointly conduct the survey with seven other
government departments,’ said IMA spokesperson Sitakant Ghanekar, at a press
conference on the occasion of National Doctors Day.
‘Through the comprehensive study, we will try to
establish links between the broiler chicken and other products that we eat, to
the rise of cancer and hormonal imbalances in Goa,’ Ghanekar added. ‘If you ask
any of the paediatricians, what age menarche (first menstrual cycle) was coming
before? I remember in our childhood it was 14 or 15, then it became 12 and 10
but now we even see cases of eight. There is some sort of hormonal derailment,’
he said, adding that polycystic ovarian diseases as well as ovarian cancers are
increasing.
The IMA office bearer also
said that in the West, a study similar to the one which is being conceived
here, especially among students, had pointed to consumption of hormone-injected
broiler as one of the reasons for the ailments. Official statistics show that
nearly 200 new patients are detected with cancer every year in Goa, half of
whom are women. Concerned by the rise in the number of cancer cases in the
state, the Goa government a few years ago had launched a cancer registry
programme, under which the state Directorate of Health Services (DHS) was
authorised to maintain a record of cancer patients throughout the state.
Ghanekar also said the DHS would be one of the
seven agencies along with the agriculture department, Goa Medical College and
the Food and Drugs Authority, among others, to be part of the study, which he
said would be ‘long term and very extensive.’
Source: www.thehealthsite.com
02.07.2015
Be yourself, don’t take anything from anyone, and never let them take
you alive
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