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Do These Antibiotics Make Me Look Fat?
Factory-scale meat producers have a voracious appetite for antibiotics. They use them both to keep animals from falling ill in cramped, filthy conditions; and to make them grow as fast as possible. The mechanism behind that second use is obscure—scientists have known since the '50s that regular exposure to low levels of antibiotics makes animals grow faster, but have never been quite sure why.
A team of researchers led by New York University microbiologist Martin Blaser might have solved the mystery. Their results suggest that it's all about how the drugs affect the' "gut biome"—the billions of bacteria that live inside animals' digestive tracts (including those of that beast, Man). Antibiotics, of course, are designed to target the pathogenic microbes—the ones that make us and animals sick. But they also attack the beneficial ones—the ones that keep us healthy. The gut biome, also known as the "microbiome"—until recently a very little-studied part of our bodies—is emerging as a major topic of research on human health and immunity to disease.
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