Blaser’s team fed mice with low doses of penicillin either at birth or at weaning, and found that the former group put on more weight after they stopped getting the drugs. Their microbiomes normalised but they still became heavier, and when the researchers transplanted these microbial communities into germ-free mice, the recipients also put on weight. This tells us a couple of important things. First, there’s a critical window in early life during which antibiotics can have particularly potent effects. Second, those effects depend on changes in the microbiome, but endure even when it largely
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Antibiotics
