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People in the agriculture industry have long recognized that giving subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics to livestock promotes body growth in these animals. To better understand the mechanism underlying that effect, researchers studied how subtherapeutic antibiotic therapy (STAT) affects the gut microbiome and body composition of mice.
At weaning, mice were exposed, through their drinking water, to one of four STAT regimens (penicillin, vancomycin, penicillin plus vancomycin, or chlortetracycline) or to no antibiotics. At 7 weeks, overall body weight did not differ among the groups, but the STAT groups had significantly greater total body fat — and gradually developed even more fat through 26 weeks. Compared with the no-STAT group, the STAT g…