Antibiotics; is this why we are fatter, are less healthy, and having more allergies?  

Last night, I was watching Bill Mahr who was on Real Time on HBO. He was interviewing Dr. Martin Blaser (check out the episode here)who is a Pultizer Prize winner and researcher for 30 years of human microbes. While most of us are familiar with the idea of antibiotic resistance, most of us never heard his concept of an antibiotic side effect of obesity and the permanent changes to the natural human flora that exists in our digestive tracts that help food digest and become assimilated properly in our bodies.

The concept of rampant obesity and antibiotics is a new one to me, however, since the 1950’s farmers have been adding antibiotics to livestock to help fatten and enlarge them as an inexpensive way of increasing the amount of animal that is for sale. Newer research does question the effectiveness of the practice, but having antibiotics used this way has resulted in super bugs that we cannot fight off with simple antibiotic usage.

The idea of leaky gut was introduced to me a while ago by one of my colleagues, who placed me on a high protein, low carb and sugar diet with periodic fasts as well as acidophilus and ultrabifidis that gave me energy, decreased my insulin resistance, and helped me keep most of my weight off that was acquired over the past 20 years. With the loss of weight was decreased insulin resistance which is the ability of the cells in our bodies to properly use insulin and sugar, one of the largest problems for many of us as we age.

Apparently, Dr. Blaser is not the first one to explore this idea which was featured in the magazine wired. Check this out here

Antibiotics Might Be Fueling Obesity Epidemic

By Brandon Keim

Expanding waistlines may be caused by more than bad diets and sedentary habits. Antibiotics could be disrupting our gut bacteria, helping people pack on fat like farm animals.

This scenario is, for now, a hypothesis, but one that’s fleshed out in two new studies. In the first, mice given antibiotics experienced profound changes to internal microbe communities that process food and regulate metabolism. In the other study, body weight in children rose with antibiotic exposures as infants.

“Early life antibiotics are changing the microbiome, and its metabolic capabilities, at a critical time in development,” said microbiologist Martin Blaser of New York University. “These changes have downstream effects on metabolism, including genes related to energy storage.”

Blaser was among the first researchers to investigate what’s become one of the hottest areas in biology: the microbiome, or the vast community of bacteria, viruses and even fungi that live inside our bodies, breaking down food and regulating physiological processes.

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One thing that seems to be proving out is that the cost of caring for all of us is rising all over the world, and antibiotics have been used all over the world as well. Is one of the things that we used to help us harming us later on and if we did need to take antibiotics for step, for example, once we finish our dosage and are “cured”, are our doctors failing us by not understanding a follow-up protocol to help restore our normal flora and body PH to pre antibiotic levels?

For sure, many doctors are reading this new information and rethinking their own philosophies regarding how and when they dispense antibiotics, and perhaps, public policy must change regarding our tolerance for using antibiotics in livestock internationally. Since most antibiotics are less profitable, especially since many of them are off patent, fewer newer antibiotics have been developed over the past 30 years, allowing for stronger, antibiotic resistant bugs.

Avoiding antibiotics for certain common conditions; tips you can use now.

After hearing this newer information, is an antibiotic a solution, a problem, or a combination of both that we have taken for granted. As a parent with young children and little experience, fear is usually who parents are driven to use antibiotics for things such as ear infections that are often treated more effectively with chiropractic adjustments (my children were both adjusted before 2 months of age and never have repeat ear infections) which are safe and do not affect the body’s normal bacterial flora.

Strep is one of the few conditions that must have an antibiotic, most of these infections your children get are viruses and are not affected by antibiotics. Secondary lung infections can be avoided by taking slow deep breaths, simply because we rarely breathe that deeply and as a result, bacteria can overgrow which prosper with a lack of oxygen. When you breathe in deeply, you supply air to the lower lungs, and then kill the infection. This too, does not require antibiotics.

What about the dreaded sinus infection? Again, you can avoid antibiotics altogether by first using tiger balm, ocean sinus spray and neosynephrine or a similar nasal spray. This works by first boiling a cup of water in the microwave, adding 1/3 teaspoon of tiger balm red to the water and then breathing in the fumes deeply with your eyes closed. Once the sinuses open, use the neosynephrine to help decrease the inflammation of the sinuses and keep them open. Then spray with ocean sinus spray to rinse the sinus passages.. This will eliminate almost all sinus infections within 24 hours more effectively than antibiotics. The secret is to keep the sinuses open.

How much to you know or understand about antibiotics. Take this quiz from WebMD by clicking here