Could household cleaners make your child fat? – WebMD

According to Kozyrskyj, "disinfectant products used very often, once a week or more, caused changes in the intestinal bacteria of infants. This has resulted in the decline of some bacteria and others an increase.

Specifically, antibacterial cleansers were linked to increased levels Lachnospiracées in infants.

Lachnospiracées Bacteria should not be very prevalent in the intestines of babies who are not yet eating solid foods, said Gail Cresci, an expert in pediatric gastroenterology at Cleveland Clinic.

According to Cresci, these bacteria are usually "good" bacteria that feed on hard-to-digest carbohydrate fibers and provide extra energy to the body.

"You do not start seeing them until the diet has been advanced to solids, around 2 or 3 years old," she added.

Have an abundance of Lachnospiracées According to Cresci, young children could be bombarded with extra calories.

"It could be logical that if an increase in these bacteria occurs early, at 3 months, this could allow the microbiome to harvest more energy and at that age, it would be stored as fat," Cresci explained. "This could potentially contribute to obesity later."

Infants living in households where the use of disinfectants is most prevalent were twice as likely to have an intestinal microbiome enriched with Lachnospiracées, the researchers reported.

Higher Lachnospiracées Levels were associated with higher BMI scores at ages 1 and 3, according to the report.

Kozyrskyj said the researchers "found that those Lachnospiracées high with the use of disinfectant was probably responsible for this overweight development. They were on the way. "

Infants were more likely to have normal weight when green cleaners were used daily. These cleansers are homemade or store-bought cleansers that use natural ingredients such as vinegar, peroxide, baking soda, citric acid or essential oils, noted Kozyrskyj.

Although the results are interesting, this study does not establish a clear cause-and-effect relationship, said Dr. Sheela Magge, director of pediatric endocrinology at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

"I agree with biological likelihood, but we obviously need more work to determine what is the cause and what is the effect," Magge said. "It's always hard to really establish that one thing in particular, in this case, these household cleaners, leads to increased weight gain."

The study, funded in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, was released on September 17 CMAJ (Journal of the Canadian Medical Association).