Acid-suppressing medications were also associated with childhood obesity, although to a lesser extent, according to results of the study, which included more than a quarter of a million children receiving care in the U.S. military health system.
Antibiotics and antacids are both microbiota-altering medications, researchers said, noting that obesity has been linked to variations in the native gut microbiota.
While the evidence from previous studies is conflicting on whether microbiota-altering medications may play a role in development of childhood obesity, this study does suggest such medications may lead to weight gain early in life, they said in the journal Gut.
“Providers should practice appropriate stewardship as the first-line response to these findings,” said Christopher M. Stark, MD, of the William Beaumont Army Medical Center, El Paso, Tex., and his co-authors.
This retrospective analysis included the largest cohort of pediatric patients ever studied for the link between antibiotics and obesity, according to Dr. Stark and colleagues, and was the first to look at the link between acid-suppressing medications and obesity in that age group.
The analysis included a total of 333,353 U.S. Department of Defense TRICARE beneficiaries born between October 2006 and September 2013 who were exposed to antibiotics, histamine-2-receptor antagonists (H2RAs), or proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) within the first 2 years of life.
Patients were followed past their initial exposure period, up to 8 years of age in some cases, investigators said.
Antibiotics were prescribed in 72.4% of those children, while H2RAs and PPIs were prescribed in 11.8% and 3.3%, respectively, with a substantial number of children receiving more than one of the medications of interest for this study.
A total of 46,993 (14.1%) of the children developed obesity. Of those obese children only 9,268, or 11%, had no antibiotic or acid suppressant prescriptions on record in the first 2 years of life, the reported data show.
Antibiotic prescriptions were associated with a 26% increase in obesity risk (unadjusted hazard ratio, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.23-1.28), investigators reported. That association strengthened steadily with the number of antibiotic prescriptions, with adjusted hazard ratios of 1.12 (95% CI, 1.09-1.15) for a single prescription, up to 1.42 (95% CI, 1.37-1.46) for 4 or more prescriptions
Likewise, H2RAs and PPIs were associated, albeit weakly, with an increased hazard of obesity, investigators said. The adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were 1.02 (1.01-1.03) for PPIs and 1.01 (1.004-1.02) for H2RA prescriptions.
The risk of obesity steadily climbed for those receiving multiple medications, researchers added, from a hazard ratio of 1.21 for one medication, 1.31 for two, and 1.42 for three, data show.
Dr. Stark and co-authors declared no competing interests related to the study.
SOURCE: Stark CM, et al. Gut. 2018 Oct 30. pii: gutjnl-2017-314971.