THE ANTIBIOTIC MISUSE SCARE
Although the vast majority of sinus infections will clear up on their own without antibiotics, most of these infections end up being treated by this therapy according to an article posted by the Harvard Medical School. It is because of this educational gap that have alarmed public health researchers because these unnecessary prescriptions lead to more side effects and higher bacterial resistance rates in the future. However, many patients demand antibiotics for their sinus infections and physicians prescribe them even with these concerning consequences. And it’s not just sinus infections that are causing a scare, it is frankly the majority of infections that are being improperly treated with an excessive amount of antibiotics that will lead to bacteria being resistant to all future treatment. This occurs when the bacteria in your body changes which makes it difficult for the medicine to fight the bacteria after increased exposure. In other words, it means that one day you might we might get an illness that cannot be treated with antibiotics due to its misuse according to an August 2019 article.
WHAT CAN GO WRONG WITH ANTIBIOTIC MISUSE?
According to a June 2019 article, antibiotics not only act on the pathogen that rudely causes your infection, but it also works on the natural, beneficial microbiota that occurs naturally in the body. In 2008, there was research conducted to study three healthy individuals that were treated with Ciprofloxacin. Later, their fecal samples were tested and found to contain about a third of the bacterial taxa. These researchers sadly discovered a decrease in taxonomic richness and diversity of their microbiota as well. Although many bacterial groups recovered after this inappropriate treatment, several bacterial taxa unfortunately did not improve, even after six months. Because there is a such a close link between the microbiota and its host, a disturbance of the natural microbiota by antimicrobial treatment can act as a potential harm to host health, leading to the development of autoimmune, allergic, and inflammatory diseases.
WHAT’S NEXT?
So, where do we go from here? Do we just cease giving antibiotics to infected individuals? When you look at the research, it seems that way. Children who are exposed to antibiotics within their first year of life have shown an empirical increased risk of developing asthma. In fact, their risk increased with the number of antibiotic courses prescribed. However, this evidence shouldn’t completely scare us into never using antibiotic therapy ever again – it is imperative that healthcare professionals prescribe antibiotics at only appropriate times and stress the fact that patients should take their full course of antibiotics even if symptoms subside. Additionally, although the gut microbiome can be permanently disturbed with even short-term or low-dose treatments, this may also open up a different avenue for microbiome modulation as a new therapeutic treatment for infections.
Magnificent Microbiota 