House cleaning: Antimicrobial disinfectants increase the risk of overweight in children

Many commonly used household cleaners could increase the risk of being overweight in little ones.

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

Household cleaning products create overweight problems for our children

Commonly used disinfectants and household cleaners may increase the risk of overweight in children, due to the alterations it causes in their gut microbiome. Alterations that eco-friendly detergents, on the other hand, do not cause.

Infants between 3 and 4 months living in households where they are used antimicrobial disinfectants at least weekly they are in fact twice as likely to have higher levels of Lachnospiraceae bacteria than children not frequently exposed to disinfectants. And when Lachnospiraceae levels are higher, the body mass index (BMI) is higher.

This is what emerges from a Canadian research of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, which statistically analyzed the data of over 750 children involved in the Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study.

Led by Anita Kozyrskyj, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Edmonton, the researchers came to their shocking results after associating the body mass index of babies with high exposure to antimicrobial products for the home - indicated by mothers in some questionnaires - and their intestinal flora when they were 3 or 4 months old, verified by analyzing fecal samples. Weight was measured at 1 and 3 years of age.

In this way it was found that the pups who had a greater alteration of the gut microbiome and a higher BMI were those exposed to a frequent use of disinfectants and multi-surface cleaners. Specifically, they observed one reduction in colonies of Haemophilus and Clostridium bacteria and higher levels of Lachnospiraceae.

A alteration which has not been found in babies whose mothers used eco-friendly detergents.

“We found that children living in households where disinfectants were used at least once a week were twice as likely to have higher levels of Lachnospiraceae in their gut by the age of 3-4 months; when they were 3 their body mass index was higher than children not exposed to frequent use of disinfectants ”, explains Professor Kozyrskyj, who is also coordinator of the SyMBIOTA project, created to evaluate the effects of alterations in the microbiome on health.

The results also showed that i babies exposed to eco-friendly disinfectants had much lower levels of bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family and no impact on body mass index.

In short, using antibacterial products for the home can mean altering the microbiome and developing overweight and obesity in children. A house “disinfected like a hospital” and polished is not good for anyone, starting with the immune system of children, which instead would also benefit from surfaces that are not perfectly sanitized. In any case, always choose eco-friendly and environmentally friendly products!