Copyright © 2009
by Daniel Matthew Korn

All Rights Reserved

It has been observed that incorrect assumptions can cause errors in action that lead to profoundly negative outcomes. This is called the law of unintended consequences. The modifications to the food supply of the modern world have severely damaged its healthfulness. Artificial flavorings are of little concern to regulatory agencies around the world. These compounds, which have not historically been part of our diet, have been pronounced safe by people who do not fully understand how the body works or why we are experiencing obesity and its related diseases. New chemical flavorings are added to the food supply all the time with only a few months of testing. Just as these harmful substances have been pronounced safe, it appears that there is something beneficial which has been pronounced harmful.

Recall the observation made by proponents of the hunter-gatherer diet that, as deaths from infectious diseases have decreased, the rate of chronic diseases has increased. Their incorrect theory held that those people who would have died before the invention of vaccines and antibiotics were the ones developing inflammatory problems. It now appears there is a more direct relationship between infectious and chronic diseases. It has been discovered that multiple strains of healthful bacteria, which are also called probiotics, decrease inflammation.¹ In fact, a strain of healthful bacteria has been used successfully as a treatment for eczema.²

Antibiotics have been suggested as possible causes of or contributors to allergies and asthma. Researchers have demonstrated this on multiple strains of mice by using antibiotics to kill the natural gut bacteria and feeding the mice yeast naturally found on human skin. With no gut bacteria, the yeast was able to easily establish itself in the mice’s stomachs. The mice were then exposed to a mold that can cause allergic reactions in humans. Not only did the mice treated with antibiotics have a more severe immune system response to the mold than normal mice, they also experienced symptoms associated with severe asthma. These results were replicated with different allergens. The researchers who performed this experiment hypothesize that “the microbial gut flora is an arm of the immune system.” This is the first experimental evidence to show a connection among antibiotics, allergies, and asthma.⁵

Antibiotics are examples of chemicals which affect our inflammatory response. Both beneficial and harmful bacteria produce chemicals inside our bodies that affect our immune system as well. These chemicals, called autoinducers, are signaling mechanisms that allow communication among bacteria; our bodies respond to these chemical signals. It has been shown that the chemicals from harmful bacteria cause our bodies to increase levels of inflammation, while the chemicals from beneficial bacteria cause our bodies to reduce levels of inflammation.^{6, 7} So not only are bacteria able to use chemicals to send messages to each other, the human body is able to recognize the messages that different types of bacteria send and respond to them. The presence of large numbers of probiotic bacteria in our digestive system decreases inflammation, by producing anti-inflammatory chemicals and by displacing harmful bacteria which produce inflammatory chemicals. The connection among the types of bacteria in our bodies, inflammation, and weight gain means that affecting the bacteria in our body can cause changes in body weight. This explains the observation that normal weight and obese people have different types of bacteria in their intestines. It is also explains what is seen in our farm animals.

Most people are under the impression that most antibiotics are used on humans to cure disease. In fact, in the United States the majority of antibiotics are given to farm animals. While humans are given antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, farm animals are given them so that they gain weight. These drugs are called antibiotic growth promoters and they have been in wide use since the 1950s. What they actually do is make the animals obese. Rather than just growing bigger, they are putting on more omega-6 fat in much the same way as do humans who become overweight.⁸

The majority of the research on obesity has blamed the problem with our milk and meat supply on the fact that our farm animals are fed grain-based commercial animal feeds. However, the Cantonese diet, which is high in grain-fed meat, has not produced even the level of obesity seen in Japan, where meat consumption is lower and fruit and vegetable consumption is higher. The Atkins diet increased consumption of meat and fat created with antibiotic growth promoters, but it did not generally cause weight gain.

Antibiotic growth promoters have now been banned in the European Union, out of concern that they could lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria, known as “superbugs,” infecting humans.⁹ Farmers are responding to the ban by using acidic animal feeds.¹⁰ In the same way as do antibiotics, acidic feeds kill healthful probiotic stomach bacteria and cause weight gain. This effect can be seen in people who gain more weight when they consume diet soda rather than regular soda. Diet soda is even more acidic than is regular soda. It can also be seen in people who eat processed foods. These foods avoid spoiling, which is caused by bacteria, without refrigeration. The reason these foods do not spoil is because of the addition of acidic food preservatives, which appear to prevent bacterial growth in our bodies as well as in food. Consumption of processed foods has been linked to weight gain, and it appears that at least some of the chemicals contained in processed foods can cause weight gain. Artificial flavoring, chemical preservatives, and farm antibiotics have several things in common: Most of them are acidic, they have all been widely declared to be safe, and they have all been rejected by people who feel healthier when avoiding them.

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Citations:

¹ Riina A. Kekkonen and others. "Probiotic intervention has strain-specific anti-inflammatory effects in healthy adults." World Journal of Gastroenterology. 12/17/2007 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/2029.pdf.

² E. Isolauri and others. “Probiotics in the management of atopic eczema.” PubMed. 12/17/2007 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11069570 .

³ K. C. Jaehnig. "Study explores soy’s effects on diabetes and obesity." Saluki Times. 12/17/2007 http://news.siuc.edu/news/July08/072308kcj8061.html.

⁴ Robert Preidt. "Probiotics Supplement May Help After Gastric Bypass Surgery." ABC News. 12/17/2007 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=8114829&page=1.

⁵ James Randerson. "Antibiotics linked to huge rise in allergies.” New Scientist. 12/17/2007 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn5047-antibiotics-linked-to-huge-rise-in-allergies.html.

⁶ Roger S. Smith and others. "The Pseudomonas Autoinducer N-(3-Oxododecanoyl) Humoserine Lactone Induces Cyclooxygenase-2 and Prostaglandin E2 Production in Human Lung Fibroblasts: I mplications for Inflammation." Journal of Immunology. 12/17/2007 http://www.jimmunol.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/5/2636.

⁷ "Overview of Lab Projects - Therapeutic Microbiology Laboratory." Bayor College of Medicine. 12/17/2007 http://www.bcm.edu/pathology/labs/Versalovic/projectstm.htm.

⁸ Peter Collignon. "Antibiotic growth promoters.” Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. 12/17/2007 http://jac.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/54/1/272.

⁹ "Antibiotic Growth Promoters on Their Way Out." PRNewswire. 12/17/2007 http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=161720.

¹⁰ Charles Martin Simon. "Something About Soda." Health Enlightenment. 12/17/2007 http://healthenlightenment.com/soda.shtml.