By now, I think most of us know to be cautious about taking antibiotics. Experts now estimate that 28 percent of antibiotics prescribed to children and adults are unnecessary. Not only that, but they can also do more harm than good. Here are some reasons for caution:
- Antibiotics are useful for only bacterial infections. They have no effect on viruses.
- They kill the beneficial bacteria in your gut (collateral damage).
- Disruption of good gut bacteria may lead to metabolic disorders such as Type 2 diabetes and autoimmune diseases.
- Antibiotics encourage bacteria to evolve drug resistant strains (“superbugs”) which can lead to antibiotic-resistant infections.
If you need an antibiotic, take the shortest course. Experts
now agree that you don’t need to take all the pills prescribed. As Dr. Martin
Blaser, the director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at
Rutgers University says, “After minimizing the biological costs of antibiotics
for decades, medical scientists are finding that longer courses are more
damaging than shorter ones.” In fact, shorter courses can be just as effective
as longer ones. (For a urinary tract infection, two days of taking an
antibiotic did the trick for me.) Most
cases of bacterial infections don’t require antibiotics for longer than five
days. But for something like Lyme disease, take the whole course.
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
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