Antibiotic use has grown along with obesity. Coincidence?

In recent years, scientists have developed a increasing appreciation for the “microbiome,” the collection of mostly useful bacteria to help us digest food, metabolize key nutrients and ward off invading pathogens investigators have cataloged thousands of these organisms during the National Institutes of Health’s Human Microbiome Project, begun in 2008.

Blaser is interested in why so many bacteria contain colonized the human body for so long the simple fact that they have strongly suggests that they serve some useful purpose except these bacteria have come up to under attack in the last 80 or so years thanks to the development of antibiotics the drugs certainly deserve a few of the credit for extending the U.S. lifespan, Blaser notes a baby born today can expect to live 78 years, 15 years longer than a baby born in 1940 except in many respects, an antibiotic targets a particular disease the technique a nuclear bomb targets a criminal, causing much collateral damage to things you’d rather not destroy.

“Antibiotics kill the bacteria we do want, as well as persons we don’t,” Blaser writes, “Sometimes, our friendly flora never fully recover” and that can leave us additional susceptible to various kinds of diseases, especially considering to the typical American is exposed to 10 to 20 antibiotics during childhood alone blaser points out to the rise (let along overuse) of antibiotics coincides with dramatic increases in the occurrence of allergies, asthma, Type 1 diabetes, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease that isn’t proof to the two are related, but it’s a question worth exploring.

Medical Minute: Tick season brings Lyme disease

Lyme disease can be complicated to diagnose in its early stages as symptoms can vary commonly from person to person and look like the flu and other ailments. The disease can cause a trait rash that can start at the bite site, or appear somewhere else. It can appear three to 30 days after a tick bite or not at all. Other general symptoms consist of fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, stiff neck, joint pain and low energy. The blood test for Lyme disease can be unenthusiastic in the early stages of the infection. Only about 30 percent of patients with Lyme disease remember the tick bite.

Lyme disease can be treated efficiently with antibiotics, mainly if treated early. If left untreated, the sickness can cause arthritis, heart problems, muscle fault, loss of memory or Bell's palsy, a paralysis and drooping of the facial muscles.Ehrlichiosis is another familiar disease also carry by deer ticks, but is much less common than Lyme disease. Its most normal symptoms include a sudden high fever, fatigue, severe headaches and muscle aches and, at times, a rash.

Symptoms usually become visible one to two weeks after a tick bite and differ from mild, self-limiting sickness to severe or hardly ever life-threatening disease. In severe cases, patients can increase low blood cell counts and kidney crash. Ehrlichiosis is complicated to diagnose, even when it is severe, because it resembles so various other diseases. Like Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis can be treating with antibiotics. About 600 cases of ehrlichiosis have been established nationwide, but no one knows how many cases have gone untouched or misdiagnosed.