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Antibiotics and Growth in India

December 5, 2015 9:00 am

A recent study (Rogawski ET, et al. J Pediatr 2015; 167: 1096-102) examined a prospective observational cohort of 497 children in India (from “semi-urban slums”). The authors found that early exposure to antibiotics were not associated with increased or decreased growth.

“There are several potential explanations for the lack of a growth-promoting effect. Most of the previous studies showing increased weight gain or risk of obesity associated with antibiotics were conducted in high-income countries with Western diets.”

My take: This was a negative study on antibiotics and obesity. This suggests that the effects of antibiotics with regard to weight gain may be limited and/or modified by diet.

Also noted: Wakamoto H, et al. J Pediatr 2015; 167: 1136-42. This study showed that Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6) which is abundant on type II alveolar pneumoctyes and respiratory epithelial cells is a fairly good serum biomarker for chronic aspiration in this study of children with severe motor and intellectual disabilities. Figure 1 shows the distribution of KL-6 among the 37 with aspiration and the 29 without aspiration. The median in the former was 344 vs 207 in the later, though there was overlapping results.

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