A recent JAMA Pediatrics study showed that early and frequent antibiotics were associated with an increase risk of obesity.  Here’s a link to the LA Times summary of this article:  Antibiotics and Obestiy (LA Times)

Here’s an excerpt:

Broad-spectrum antibiotics — including amoxicillin, tetracycline, streptomycin, moxifloxacin and ciprofloxacin — are intended for treatment of major systemic infections, in cases where the bacteria causing the illness has not been identified, or where a patient is under attack by a strain of bacteria resistant to standard antibiotics. While they can be highly effective, their antibiotic action is indiscriminate, and beneficial bacteria in the body are often killed off as collateral damage.

The latest study tapped the medical records of 64,580 babies and children in and around Philadelphia. It was published Monday [Sept 29, 2014] in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

The heightened risk of obesity linked to antibiotic use was not huge: Babies who got wide-spectrum antibiotics in their first two years were about 11% more likely to be obese between 2 and 5 than were those who got no such drugs. Babies who had four or more courses of any antibiotics in the first two years were also 11% more likely to be obese in early childhood than those who’d had fewer exposures to antibiotics.

Related blog post:

• Could antibiotics make you fat? | gutsandgrowth