..creates drug resistant bacteria.
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/795_antibio.html


Ah, you may think why am I posting this here. Yesterday I had a conversation with cunny_funt on iSketch about antibiotics and I thought I should show him/her this, and well.. others could gain a little useful knowledge too :p

cunny_funt are ya listening?

__________________
Time Flies like an arrow, Fruit flies like a banana
- Grouch Marx

good link, ty

Sorry but I can't stop laughing at the thought of Cunny being a he/she rofl!!!!

__________________

Anybody looking for an explanation?

__________________

Ohh, nothing to do eh? I have a little green jacket here with your name on it :P It's still warm!


My sister had that problem when she was a kid - kept having kidney infections, and the anti-biotics they gave her at first was too strong really, so once she became immune to it's effects, they struggled finding her a more effective one. It went on for a few years, and they had basically just said that there were no more options, anti-biotic wise, when she suddenly got better.

__________________

lol vik, I kinda like this blue one for now. Green looks better on you.


Everyone has a lot of bacteria in them. Including some particularly nasty bugs, but these are kept in check because other bacteria are just better in their envinronment than the pathogens, and the numbers of pathogens stay low or virtually nonexistant. Pathogens only become a problem when conditions are favourable (when something's off) for them or when they come in numbers (eating a bad burrito), but not to worry, if they don't come in numbers they will reproduce and become numerous if conditions are favourable.

A misbalance in an organisms bacterial communities can also cause favourable conditions for pathogens (more availability of resources, less competition for them, etc). So they cause an infection.

Normally, we take antibiotics for infections, but this is not necessarily beneficial. One problem is that not all bacteria are susceptible to all antibiotics, some are pretty specific. The other problem is that when antibiotics are acting, it kills a lot of guys from all teams, so it levels the field for any survivors. A race starts for all the resources available and if one bacterium reproduces faster than the other, this one will become dominant faster, and this could create a different problem. But often it's the same problem as pathogens usually have the faster growth rate, it's what they do for a living.

Now, sometimes these survivors were not by luck. Some of these survivors have R-factors, little genetic sequences that duplicate on their own and are passed from one guy to another. They code for proteins that allow bacteria to be immune to an antibiotic. Sometimes these R-factors can be passed on from one species to another, and this is a huge deal, as this can lead to one big bad guy becoming resistant and causing a big fuss. So big it could easily kill a person just like in the old days when Yersinia pestis was queen. And to add insult to injury, some nasty bugs can carry numerous R-factors.

It's also worth mentioning that antibiotics also have a lot of side effects, and it's just not cool, they really hurt our bodies, especially these latest generation ones. There's only a couple antibiotics that have no known resistance yet, glycopeptides they're called. Vancomycin, a glycopeptide antibiotic, is a last resort antibiotic. It's used for stuff like the flesh eating disease, Clostridium difficile infections (notorious for their anti-biotic resistance) and stuff like that. To this day, if any bug develops resistance to this one we're all screwed.

But yeah, once one stops taking them, one must take steps to normalize the conditions of our body. That way our gut gets better, our bacterial friends grow and our enemies stay in check.

Ah that felt good.

__________________

Damn you 2.0, you stole my thunder Great explanation though!

If anybody is looking for a simpler explanation though,




Stole this image from wikipedia (btw)

Stage 1: mix of all kinds of bacteria
Stage 2: Misuse antibiotics
Stage 3: the resistant bacteria are the only ones remaining
Stage 4: they reproduce and cause infection, surprise!! original antibiotic is no longer effective!!

repeat steps with a wide variety of anti-biotics and you have a incurable, life threatening infection.

but thats not the worst part, suppose I go to the hospital with a regular common cold and catch the super bugs from some random person who misused anti-biotics, voila, you have a life threatening condition.

Please do not misuse anti-biotics. Take antibiotics only on prescription. Please use the full course even if you begin feeling well. Please stop buying random stuff like hand wash and floor cleaners with weakened antibiotics in them

Thankfully all hope is not lost yet for us fragile beings, the pharma industry is seeing money in new antibiotics again and there is research going on. We can only hope some dope does not start misusing the new drugs.

__________________
Time Flies like an arrow, Fruit flies like a banana
- Grouch Marx

rocky, you rock. Nice work.

__________________

Today's scociety is too clinically clean. Babies, as they grow up and when they most need to dont get a chance to build up an immune system of their own. No I am not saying dont keep things around your baby clean.

Not only that, but we rely on drugs too much to treat infections instead of letting our own immune system tackle it and thereby building itself up against that and future threats too. Again, no I am not saying expose yourself to infections and deseases and I am NOT saying dont use prescribed drugs either.

You only have to look at the rise in infections and deseases and compare to the rise in available drugs to treat those very same infections and deseases.

For most of us, our immune systems were never givern a chance to grow strong.

__________________
Your IP: (From )
My IRC Status:
iSketchForum.net member for days

Before age 11 i must've had just about every major non-lethal tropical disease known.

And i agree. People, let your kids play in the grass and get muddy and dirty. And don't be mad if your child gets sick, you'll be glad when your child is older and not disease prone.

__________________