Gut Microbiota of Infants Predicts Obesity in Children and how to avoiding common misunderstandings in the use of medicine in children

Obesity in children can cause respiratory diseases in children. Because fat accumulates around the respiratory tract, it is easy to cause respiratory obstruction in children and may cause respiratory tract infection. Obesity in children can also cause a weakened immune system, making them more susceptible to infection. It can also lead to increased blood lipids in the baby, resulting in atherosclerosis.

Fat will also compress the nerves, causing the baby's brain to develop poorly, causing the baby's mental retardation, and also causing the baby to have precocious puberty, fatty liver, and other severe conditions.

In addition, the safety of children's medication is also an issue that has received much attention from society, ensuring children's medication needs, promoting children's safety, and rationally regulating medication.

The following article will tell you what children may be related to the gut microbiome and also provide some ways to avoid the effects of medicine on children.

Gut Microbiota of Infants Predicts Obesity in Children

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then the gut microbiome is a window to future health. Evidence continues to show the significance of gut microbiota on many health conditions and disease states.

New data from investigators at the University of Colorado suggests that evaluating the gut microbiota of infants may help identify children at risk for becoming overweight or obese.

The research revealed that gut microbiota composition at two years of life is associated with body mass index (BMI) at age 12. In addition, the BMI at age 2 was not significantly higher in children who later became overweight/obese, indicating that gut microbiota composition may be the earliest warning sign for detecting obesity.

"Our study provides more evidence that the gut microbiota might be playing a role in later obesity," notes lead study investigator Maggie Stanislawski, Ph.D., a research associate at the LEAD Center, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Colorado School of Public Health. "If our findings can be confirmed by other studies, the gut microbiota might play an important part in the obesity prediction algorithm to identify at-risk kids early in life, before they start to gain any excess weight that might put them at risk for later obesity."

Findings from the new study were published in mBio through an article titled "Gut Microbiota in the First 2 Years of Life and the Association with Body Mass Index at Age 12 in a Norwegian Birth Cohort."

Before this study, a growing body of evidence has demonstrated that gut microbiota plays a significant role in obesity, and there is some evidence that the role might be causal. To shed more light on the issue, the University of Colorado researchers collaborated with Norwegian scientists who led the NoMIC study at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, analyzing data from 165 infants with BMI measured at 12 years.

The NoMIC study began in 2002 as one of the earliest birth cohorts in the world to investigate the early life gut microbiome and includes roughly 550 kids who are now teenagers. The study recruited moms and infants in the hospital at the delivery time. At 12 years of age, 20% of the 165 children in the study cohort were overweight or obese.

In the current study, the researchers compared the BMI at age 12 with gut microbiota samples from six-time points throughout their childhood, at day four, day ten, one month, four months, one year, and two years. They performed 16s rRNA gene sequencing on the gut microbiota samples.

"We examined the early-life gut microbiota at days 4, 10, 30, 120, 365, and 730 and the association with body mass index (BMI) z-scores at age 12 in a prospective Norwegian cohort (n = 165), and evaluated how these BMI-associated taxa relate to maternal overweight/obesity (Ow/Ob) and excessive gestational weight gain (GWG)," the authors wrote. "We performed 16S rRNA gene sequencing on the gut microbiota samples. Taxonomic phylogeny at days 10 and 730 were significantly associated with childhood BMI, and the gut microbiota taxa at two years of age explained over 50% of the variation in childhood BMI in this cohort."

"We looked at whether there were specific taxa that were predictive of later BMI at each time point," Dr. Stanislawski adds.

Interestingly, the researchers found qualitative differences in the composition of children's gut microbiota at day ten and two years associated with BMI z-scores at age 12. BMI z-scores are measures of relative weight adjusted for child age and sex. They also examined how much variation in childhood BMI z-scores was explained by the early gut microbiota taxa.

"At the early time, there was somewhat of a relationship between the gut microbiota taxa and later BMI, but the relationship was much stronger as the kids got older," Dr. Stanislawski states. "At one year, it was stronger than the earlier time points. At two years, it was the strongest. We found this very interesting because, at two years, there wasn't any obvious phenotype in terms of whether or not the kids would become obese. Kids who became obese later in life didn't have high BMI z-scores at age 2. The findings suggest that the gut microbiota phenotype was present before any overt sign of overweight or obesity. Since the gut microbiota is influenced by diet, this association could also reflect dietary choices that are precursors to obesity."

One limitation of the study is that the entire cohort was of Norwegian descent. This research, the authors note, needs to be repeated in other cohorts, but if replicated, it may lead to a new tool to identify kids at risk for developing obesity.

"It is better to identify at-risk kids early. It is easier to prevent obesity than to reverse it," Dr. Stanislawski remarks. "It's possible that if we follow up some of these findings in the lab, it will reveal more about obesity's pathophysiology."

The study also exposed a potential health caution. The researchers found that some gut microbes generally thought healthy in children and adults were associated with higher childhood BMI. This highlights that we do not fully understand the dynamics of the gut colonization process.

"When I was pregnant, my doctor suggested giving the baby probiotics every day, and I think a lot of people are giving their infants probiotics," Dr. Stanislawski concludes. "However, it might not be the best idea to give babies the same types of bacteria every day, particularly in very early life when overloading the gut with one or two strains may prevent colonization with other important bacteria."

She points out that one way to improve the gut microbiota in kids and adults is to eat a well-balanced diet with lots of different types of vegetables and fiber, so there are many things feeding the gut microbiota.

How to avoid common misunderstandings in the use of medicine on children

It reported countless cases of children's liver and kidney function and nervous system damage due to improper medication. Pediatricians have called for pediatric medication, not a reduced version of the adult medication. The drug in children's bodies have a particular physiological state and should have detailed research about pharmacokinetic and toxicological.

Pharmacokinetics is the study of the dynamics of the body's disposition of medicine, including the absorption, distribution, biochemical conversion (or metabolism), and excretion of drugs in the body, especially the pattern of changes in blood concentration over time. The metabolism of drugs is related to age, gender, individual differences, genetic factors, etc. Children are characterized by rapid growth and development, and the development of their organs, drug-metabolizing enzymes, transport proteins, and receptors makes the process of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of drugs, as well as the characteristics of drug efficacy at different ages, are significantly different from those of adults. Therefore, parents must do an excellent job of protecting their children, avoiding some misconceptions when giving medication, and trying not to let children take those medicine that has toxic solid side effects on the body.

1, The common misconceptions of children's medication.

(1) Reduced dose of adult medication

Due to the lack of medication for children, it is common for children to take reduced doses (e.g., half a tablet) of adult medication. Children are not shrunken adults; their livers are not mature enough to detoxify medicine as well as adults; their kidneys are not as capable of removing medicine as adults, and the blood-brain barrier function of the brain is not fully developed to prevent particular medicine from harming the brain. Therefore, children should not be given adult medicine, even if the dose is reduced.

(2) Mixing up drug names and doses

A " National Medication Error Reporting Project" showed that nearly a quarter of medication errors were due to confusion over the name of the medication. For example, the former is a single-ingredient drug, the active ingredient of which is acetaminophen, used to reduce fever in children; the latter is a compound drug containing four ingredients, used for the symptomatic treatment of children's colds, with side effects such as drowsiness, weakness, and loss of appetite.

Side effects such as drowsiness, fatigue, and loss of appetite. Therefore, it is essential to check the name of the medication when using it for children and not to confuse it.

In addition, medicine has different dosage units, which can be easily misinterpreted. For example, the dose of the anti-allergy drug cetirizine in drops is 0.25 ml (equivalent to 2.5 mg of active ingredient) per dose for children under two years old, and some doctors are used to writing 2.5 mg. A little carelessness, 2.5mg was misread as 2.5ml, given to children to reach the poisonous dose; severe cases can lead to the death of children; the United States has reported such an example.

(3) Giving medication to children without reading the drug instructions

Some parents give medication to their children directly at home after dispensing it in the hospital, without reading the drug instructions, feeding them with their own experience, or using ordinary spoons to measure the dose. Some people think it is enough to take medicine and increase or decrease the dose at will without paying attention to the time and times of taking medicine. The dose of medicine for children should not be adjusted casually, as an insufficient dose will affect the efficacy of the medicine, and too large a dose will cause toxic side effects.

(4) Thinking that Chinese medicine is not toxic

Many people think that Chinese medicine is a purely natural product with no toxicity, and the adverse effects of Chinese medicine are usually written in the drug manual as " not yet clear." The word "unclear" only indicates no clinical data and does not mean absolute safety. Similarly, medicine advertised as "100% plant-based" does not represent 100% safety, so it is essential to remember the adage that " medicine is three parts poison."

(5) Take multiple medications together

Some parents think that if they take more medicine, they will get better faster, so they take Chinese medicine with Western medicine or multiple medicines together. Medicine entering the body is metabolized and inactivated by the liver and excreted and cleared by the kidneys. Because children's liver and kidney functions are not yet sound, various medicine may cause liver and kidney damage and even liver and kidney poisoning. Others like to dissolve the drug in milk, juice, and porridge soup for children to take because milk, drinks, sugar, water, and other liquids contain a variety of substances that may be combined with the drug, affecting the absorption of drugs. Destroy the structure of the drug, affecting the treatment of medicine so that the effect is significantly reduced.

(6) Excessive superstition in foreign medicines

There are significant risks involved in buying foreign medicines from the Internet. Due to language barriers, many people can not understand foreign medicine' actual use and dosage. It is also difficult to obtain timely information on adverse drug reactions.

Some children do not cooperate with the medicine; how to coax them not to eat? Some parents will force-feed the medicine. This method is very undesirable. In the child's crying voice, force-feeding medicine, it is easy to make the drug choke into the trachea, causing the risk of asphyxiation; if the child falls asleep quietly feeding the chemical, the liquid will suddenly stimulate the sleeping child's tongue, throat and other parts of the nerve can reflexly cause laryngeal spasm. In addition, parents avoid letting their children see when they take medicine because their imitation ability is relatively strong; the medicine should also be placed out of reach of children to avoid them getting it and then taking it by mistake.

2, parents should pay attention to these medicine on the child's toxic side effects, strong

(1) Medicine that damages children's auditory nerve: streptomycin, kanamycin, gentamicin, etc.

(2) Medicine that causes kidney damage in children: polymyxin, norepinephrine, etc.

(3) Medicine that causes brain damage in some children.

(4) Tetracycline, haloperidol, and other medicine can affect the development of teeth and bones in young children.

(5) Cold and flu: can cause hematuria in children; nasal drip (naphazoline) can cause poisoning in children, etc.

3, Three kinds of cold medicine should not be given to children

(1) Anacin Anacin is once the " king of fever" it reduces fever quickly, and the price is also low. But it has a huge disadvantage, that is, many adverse reactions and severe, such as triggering leukopenia, renal impairment, immune hemolytic anemia, urticaria, and a long list of side effects. It is not recommended even for adults.

(2) Nimesulide As early as 2011, China's Food and Drug Administration issued a notice specifying the use of Nimesulide in children under 12 years of age. In recent years, there have been many reports of severe liver damage related to Nimesulide, so this drug has been banned from use as an antipyretic.

(3) Aspirin Aspirin is known as the "cure-all" we all know that adults may be okay with it, but if used on babies, it can kill them! Medical research has shown that if children use aspirin, there is a risk of Reye's syndrome, mainly seen in children aged four months to 5 years. The longer and younger children take aspirin, the more likely they are to develop this disease, with a mortality rate of 30%.

Children are in the stage of growth and development with unique physiological characteristics, the drug in children's bodies present pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and other parameters significantly differ from adults.

Experts say that   should establish a more transparent, system-wide standard for the dosage forms and specifications of medicine for children, improve and perfect the guiding principles and guidelines for research on medicine for children;

Especially clinical research on medicine for children, clarify the technical requirements and standards for research on medicine for children and promote the integration of clinical, R&D, and production aspects.