Sunday, December 27, 2020

Antibiotics on the farm

We now know that antibiotics were overused and that we're suffering because of it. When I first heard of their use, I wondered why farmers wanted to be so pro-active. Why not just treat them when they get sick? I was disabused of that misunderstanding.

The antibiotics promote growth in livestock. The headline in that article says "fatten" but the growth gave less fat and more protein. Nobody knows why.

Maybe it does something to the gut bacteria -- for mice low antibiotic doses make them obese, and a microbiome transplant from the obsese mouse to untreated ones makes them obese. But that "obesity transplant" can happen with people in other situations, so it may not be directly related.

Directly trying to directly measure the gut bacteria of steers doesn't show very much--probably because they only look at a few strains.

Maybe fewer bacteria in the gut means you get more of the nutrition yourself. The second link has a list of 11 possible mechanisms people have investigated.

Maybe, as the first link suggests, it might not be important anymore, thanks to better overall nutrition any hygiene for hogs. Or maybe a 16% average weight gain is important enough that farmers are still using them, despite the rules against it.

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