Antibiotics wreak havoc on athletic performance: Knocking out gut bacteria deflates the will, ability to exercise

New research demonstrates that by killing essential gut bacteria, antibiotics ravage athletes’ motivation and endurance. The UC Riverside-led mouse study suggests the microbiome is a big factor separating athletes from couch potatoes.

Other studies have examined the way that exercise affects the microbiome, but this study is one of few to examine the reverse — how gut bacteria also impact voluntary exercise behaviors. Voluntary exercise involves both motivation and athletic ability.

The researchers’ methods and results are now detailed in the journal Behavioural Processes.

“We believed an animal’s collection of gut bacteria, its microbiome, would affect digestive processes and muscle function, as well as motivation for various behaviors, including exercise,” said Theodore Garland, UCR evolutionary physiologist in whose lab the research was conducted. “Our study reinforces this belief.”

Researchers confirmed through fecal samples that after 10 days of antibiotics, gut bacteria were reduced in two groups of mice: some bred for high levels of running, and some that were not.

Neither group of mice exhibited any signs of sickness behavior from the antibiotic treatment. So, when wheel running in the athletic mice was reduced by 21 percent, researchers were certain the microbiome damage was responsible. In addition, the high runner mice did not recover their running behavior even 12 days after the antibiotic treatment stopped.

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