That moment you finish pumping your gas and you think about all of the other hands that may have touched the same nozzle, so you become so disgusted until you remember that there is a bottle of Purell in the car. You suddely have the urge to open the cap, squeeze half of the bottle into your hand and rub them until your hands have never felt cleaner. The soothing idea that only .01% of bacteria may still lay on your hand rushes upon you and then you are able to go about your day picking up food with your fingers and proceeding to place it in your mouth.

 

Funny thing is, studies show that using Purell is not good for our hygiene. Does this mean that using Purell and  other anti-bacterial creams, sprays and medicine have actually been the cause of some of our ailments? Purell should not  be used on a day to day basis because it removes 99.99% of germs that means that you are not only killing the bad germs but also the good germs, and maybe leaving just .01% of them behind. Anti-biotics have a similar affect as Purell.

 

The hypothesis:

H. pylori in the stomach- photo taken from healthmedicalarticles.com

Dr. Blaser, a profesor of microbiology at NYU, decided to research what are the consequences of killing all of the bad bacteria in the human body by using anti-biotics and anti-bacterial creams. He came upon the hypothesis that “the overuse of antibiotics increase the risk of obesity.”  He discovered that anti-biotics have been prescribed to patients with ulcers and gastric cancer, even when the patients showed no symptoms. These anti-biotics actually kill a bacteria called Helicobactor pylori (H.pylori). Studies show without H.pylori, a hunger hormone ghrelin, increases its secretion after a meal, when the hormone is actually suppose to drop in secretion levels. Thus by removing H. pylori the person is actually eating more frequently and consequently gaining more weight. It is also shown the children who have been treated with regular doses of anti-biotics to treat throat and ear infections had a marked increase in body fat while maintaining a constant diet. So can it be blamed on doctors that what they say is so-and-so “baby fat” is actually a result of their over prescription of anti-biotics when we had ear infections? Ok. maybe I went a bit to far, but it seems simple, some bad bacteria is meant to be in our system, not only to keep us healthy but also so that we can form some resistance to the bad bacteria.

Superbugs? 

By overusing anti-biotics we have created superbugs such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. What a big word, what does it mean? Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus is a bacteria better known as MRSA and is derived from a bacteria that was known to create staph infections. That bacteria was able to be treated through an assortment of anti-biotics but this new superbug does not respond to most anti-biotics. Thus more and more anti-biotics are being given to MRSA patients resulting in a large concern for obesity in these patients.

Back to the Hypothesis of Dr. Blaser: 

Yu Chen, an epidemiologist at NYU, has agreed with Dr. Blaser that the overuse of anti-biotics and the correlation to H. pylori has also been the cause of many childhood infections such as: hay fever, asthma, and skin allergies. Peter Turnbaugh, a Harvard University geneticist, and  Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, a gastroenterologist at Washington University in St. Louis have also agreed with Dr. Blaser that the use of anti-biotics alter the healthy ratios of bacteria in the stomach, which results in an on-set of weight gain.

This is just the start of Dr. Blaser’s studies, he was granted over 100 million dollars from the National Institute of Health and plans on researching more bacteria, not only H.pylori. SO, what does this mean? Can anti-biotics be killing too much bacteria? Should we be waiting until our sickness has reached its peak before we take an anti-biotic? What about Purell is that creating superbugs?

A solution may be to wash our hands before we eat, but not be too narcotic and kill all of the bacteria that may lay on our hands, what do you think?

 

For more information please go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/health/scientist-examines-possible-link-between-antibiotics-and-obesity.html?_r=2&ref=science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori

http://www.health24.com/natural/Probiotics/17-1940,33634.asp