source: Han Xiaorong correspondents of surging news network, Sun Guogen
the latest research shows that childhood is exposed to a variety of antibiotic environments and may be one of the factors of childhood obesity.
the key laboratories of the Ministry of public health and safety education of Fudan University and young researchers Wang He Xing and Wang Na of the school of public health of Fudan University have collected the urine samples of children in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. After more than 3 years of research, the exposure of antibiotics in children may be one of the risk factors for children's obesity, and the corresponding results have been published. In the latest issue of the international authoritative magazine on environment, Environment International.
www.thepaper.cn has learned that the world's scientific community has been paying attention to the problem of exposure to antibiotics (especially school-age children) and that the use of antibiotics in infants and infants is related to the risk of childhood obesity, but the relationship between them has not been found directly.
to find direct evidence, the research group has begun to design the relevant research methods since 2010, and collected about 1500 urine samples from three school age children in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai every year in 2012, which lasted until 2014. In the meantime, the team of researchers has explored and established a high-throughput detection method for various antibiotics in the urine through long-term laboratory work.
in order to study the effects of antibiotic use on children or from exposure to food antibiotics to children's adipose formation, the subject group was the first to use antibiotic biological monitoring methods in the world for the first time. 586 children from 8 to 11 year old school age children's urine samples collected in Shanghai area in 2013 were studied. The results showed that there were 21 kinds of antibiotics in the urine. It includes 5 macrolide antibiotics, 2 beta lactam antibiotics, 3 tetracycline antibiotics, 4 quinolones antibiotics, 4 sulfonamides and 3 chloramphenicol antibiotics, of which 79.6% of school children have detected one or more of the 21 antibiotics in the urine.
in order to find out the relationship between antibiotics and obesity, the researchers divided the children into 3 groups from low to high according to the concentration of antibiotics in urine.
after correcting sex, age, educational level of parents, income level, intake of puffed food, and smoking status of relatives and friends, the study found that the risk of obesity in middle and high concentration groups was 1.99 to 3 times as low as those in the low concentration group.
at the same time, the subject group used body mass index and waist circumference to judge overweight or obesity in children. Further analysis of urine revealed that antibiotic exposure to veterinary drugs or mainly used in animals was associated with overweight or obesity in children.
also indicates a positive association between antibiotic exposure and risk of childhood obesity. Researchers believe that the environmental sources of veterinary antibiotics are mainly contaminated by water and food.
no obesity or overweight was observed in this study, which was significantly associated with medical antibiotics used primarily in the population. The Group believes that the use of medical antibiotics is essentially a short-term high dose exposure, while antibiotic exposure from food or environment is a long-term low dose exposure, which suggests that the exposure pattern of antibiotics may be one of the important factors affecting the production of fat.
project group said that in 2013, the use of antibiotics in China reached 162 thousand tons a year, accounting for about half of the world's consumption, of which 52% were for veterinary use, 48% for human use, and more than 50 thousand tons of antibiotics were discharged into the soil and water environment.
in view of the prevalence of antibiotic exposure in the population and the great pressure of current obesity to personal health and social development, they will expand the sample size, and use longitudinal research combined with animal models to further explore the effects of exposure to low doses of antibiotics on the growth and health of children.
currently, the group is testing and analyzing the drinking water samples and food samples to further clarify the main sources of the above antibiotics.