The week's top stories in family medicine

Healio.com/Family Medicine presents the week’s top news stories, including relief from Parkinson’s symptoms, hypoglycemia treatment in newborns and antibiotics correlation to weight gain.

Antibiotic use in childhood may impact lifetime weight gain

Children who received antibiotics tended to weigh more and have more accelerated weight gain with age, compared with children who had never taken antibiotics. Results demonstrated that a reversible association was observed between antibiotic use and BMI trajectories, with the largest effect occurring during the mid-teen years. This observation was persistent and progressed with age. Read more.

No significant difference in health outcomes of vaginal, cesarean births

In Australia, few differences were seen in long-term health and developmental outcomes of children born via cesarean delivery versus vaginal delivery, after adjusting for birth factors, social vulnerability, maternal BMI and breastfeeding. This study suggests that some of the previously reported associations between birth by cesarean delivery and adverse childhood health outcomes may be explained by influences other than mode of birth,” the researchers wrote. Read more.

Leukemia drug improved symptoms among patients with Parkinson’s

Individuals with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia had improved cognition, motor skills and nonmotor functions, as well as significant changes in toxic proteins linked to disease progression, after receiving Tasigna, an FDA-approved drug for leukemia. Read more.

Treating hypoglycemia in newborns is safe, prevents brain damage

Infants who were treated for hypoglycemia, with the aim of maintaining a blood glucose level of at least 47 mg/dL, did not have an increased risk for adverse neurological outcomes at 2 years of age. Read more.