Musings Report #26 06-23-12 Have antibiotics increased obesity?
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On Minnowing and Winnowing
I write fast and edit lightly (if at all) due to the workload here at oftwominds.com, and occasionally a typo migrates into Freudian-slip territory, as longtime correspondent Chuck D. noted in an email after receiving last week's Musings Report: "You probably noticed that there's a typographical error in the subject line of your report, but I found it to be very intriguing! What can we learn about survival by "minnowing"? My experience with minnows is that they swim in schools, that they startle easily, and though they are in the middle of the food chain, they do survive generation after generation. Blessed are the meek!"
Good one, Chuck!
Have antibiotics increased obesity?
There is an absolutely fascinating article in the June issue of Scientific American (I've been a subscriber since 1980 or so) on the complex ecology of bacteria that live in dynamic symbiosis with our human cells. It turns out these hundreds of different varieties of "good" microbes are not simply passive passengers--some actually trigger hormonal responses in our bodies.Clearly, we have evolved symbiotically with bacteria that are essential to our well-being (not to mention digestion). The Ultimate Social Network--our microbiome. (the full article is only available to subscribers, but perhaps your local library has a copy.)
Here's a stunning example of the interaction between our health and "good" bacteria. The bacteria H. Pylori has been identified as the cause of peptic ulcers, but in its non-inflammatory "default state" it helps regulate the hormones ghrelin and leptin that control appetite and satiation--our sense that we're "full" and can stop eating.
Two generations ago (i.e. the Baby Boom), 80% of Americans hosted the bug. Now a mere 6% of American children host the microbe, which means that a critical part of the body's appetite suppression mechanism is missing from most children. Could this be one reason why obesity rates have skyrocketed since 1980? Sustained applications of antibiotics early in life may eliminate the bug (among a number of other reasons for the bacteria's decline).
Many doctors read oftwominds.com, and a number have told me via email that patients continue to insist on getting antibiotics for virus-related illnesses--that is, illnesses that do not and cannot respond to antibiotics (viruses are not bacteria). As a result of over-use and incomplete/incorrect use, the number of antibiotics that kill rapidly evolving and highly dangerous bacteria is falling to near-zero.
The widespread use of antibiotics is thus very likely fueling the obesity epidemic, even as it is leading to a dearth of antibiotics that actually work against dangerous "bad" bacteria. Antibiotics kill all sorts of bacteria, not only the "bad" ones.
The take-away is that our understanding of complex ecologies, in our bodies, in the natural world and in our economies, is primitive and often misleading. Perhaps a little humility about our understanding and the consequences of our "fixes" is in order.
Celebrating Alan Turing's 100th Birthday (1912-1954)
Google's entry page today has a wonderful animation of Alan Turing's "universal computing machine": the machine, an invention of Turing's imagination, can perform any numerical calculation on a single strip of paper that moves back and forth over a reader that performs one operation: it can change a zero to 1 and vice versa. Highly recommended: The 7 highly productive habits of Alan Turing... Turing has long been one of my heroes.
Did the global economy tip into recession in May?
It's more a gut feeling than a data-driven result, but I sense a great disturbance in the global "Force" occurred in May. Anecdotally, all sorts of subtle readings suddenly fell off. The declines may not seem like much on the surface, but a mere 4% decline could trigger outsized effects in 64% of the moving parts of any dynamic system (the 4/64, 20/80 Pareto Rule). Once 20% of the economy slows, the other 80% will experience outsized consequences. The dominoes have only begun to topple.
From Left Field
Thanks for reading--
charles
