4 ms·

I'm with you on basically all points. For a good time, take a look at carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaciae [1] and totally resistant TB [2]. Regarding the a

I'm with you on basically all points. For a good time, take a look at carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaciae [1] and totally resistant TB [2]. Regarding the antibiotics, it's not completely clear why giving them to animals makes them bigger, and it may well not have anything to do with poor living conditions. It seems to work in humans, too, and these results were discovered as early as the 1940s [citation needed]. But those are just quibbles; on the key points, I'm with you. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/hai/organisms/cre/index.html http://www.cdc.gov/hai/organisms/cre/index.html [2] http://www.who.int/tb/challenges/mdr/tdrfaqs/en/index.html http://www.who.int/tb/challenges/mdr/tdrfaqs/en/index.html

dmiladinov 14y ago
> Regarding the antibiotics, it's not completely clear why giving them to animals makes them bigger I think the explanation that I heard which sounds plausible is that the antibiotics free up a certain amount of energy in the organism that would have gone to fighting micro-organisms that can instead be applied to growth.
- eru 14y ago
  Be very cautious with easy and intuitive explanations in biology.
ericb 14y ago
Do antibiotics make people taller, fatter, or both?
arvin 14y ago
> Regarding the antibiotics, it's not completely clear why giving them to animals makes them bigger From the 'Germs Are Us' article: "In August, Ilseung Cho, of the New York University School of Medicine, published a study showing that antibiotics eradicated bacteria, commonly found in the digestive system of mice, that help the animals metabolize calories efficiently; without the microbes, the mice absorbed more calories from the same amount of food and rapidly became obese." http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/22/121022fa_fact_specter?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/22/121022fa_fact_...

dmiladinov 14y ago

> Regarding the antibiotics, it's not completely clear why giving them to animals makes them bigger I think the explanation that I heard which sounds plausible is that the antibiotics free up a certain amount of energy in the organism that would have gone to fighting micro-organisms that can instead be applied to growth.

eru 14y ago
Be very cautious with easy and intuitive explanations in biology.

ericb 14y ago

Do antibiotics make people taller, fatter, or both?

arvin 14y ago

> Regarding the antibiotics, it's not completely clear why giving them to animals makes them bigger From the 'Germs Are Us' article: "In August, Ilseung Cho, of the New York University School of Medicine, published a study showing that antibiotics eradicated bacteria, commonly found in the digestive system of mice, that help the animals metabolize calories efficiently; without the microbes, the mice absorbed more calories from the same amount of food and rapidly became obese." http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/22/121022fa_fact_specter?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/22/121022fa_fact_...