Now, you read the title and you probably thought, “This guy is crazy, what the hell is he talking about, is he dumb or something?”, well I’m not very smart, but I “ain’t” dumb either, I will tell you why antibiotics are killing people indirectly, just try to keep up with me.
First, I think I need to give you guys some background information about myself, just so you guys understand that I’m not talking out of my ###.
I’m a veterinary student, currently in second year, I love nutrition, health and animals (even though some of them don’t like me very much, cof…cof…cats…cof…cof, but I can understand them, I wouldn’t like someone to put a thermometer up my *** either), so by being a veterinary student I’m not talking nonsense, I actually have some basic knowledge of this, but, even though I have basic knowledge, I advise everyone that is reading this to actually go do your own research and to not trust my word, this is something you should do with everything in life.
Let’s start our journey by knowing what are bacteria!
Bacteria are prokaryotic microorganisms that come in all different shapes and sizes, they can breathe all sort of stuff. Their basic structures are: cell walls, membranes, and a nucleus that is not membrane-bound, they can sometimes have other structures as capsules, inclusions, plasmids (DON’T FORGET THIS ONE),etc.
Now that you know about bacteria let’s talk a little about antibiotics!
What are antibiotics?
Antibiotics are a type of drug used to combat bacterial infections, they can work against the bacteria in many ways:
• They can damage the bacteria cell wall (penicillin, for example)
• They can damage the bacteria cell membrane
• They can inhibit protein synthesis
• They can inhibit DNA synthesis
• They can inhibit the bacteria’s metabolism
Ok, so far so good, you are doing an amazing job at keeping up, are you sure you never did this before? You now know the most basic knowledge of bacteria and antibiotics! You can already leave this post knowing that you learned a thing or two…no? you don’t want to leave? Ok, nice! Then let’s keep going
What happens when you take an antibiotic?
You wake up one morning feel sick and down, you know yourself and so you know that you must have a virus or a pathogenic bacteria of some sort, you look to the cabinet and you see a flask of the antibiotic the doctor prescribed you last time you were sick, the amazing Antibiotic-over_9000, you open up the Antibiotic-over_9000 and you drink a spoon, or pop a pill, and that Antibiotic goes through your digestive tube, now this is where it gets more interesting.
In your digestive tube you got normal bacteria flora, let’s call them “good bacteria”. Those good bacteria end up having contact with that antibiotic, and the antibiotic will affect them as they would any other, some bacteria will die, while others will survive, the survivors are resistant to that antibiotic, that resistance is coded in their genes, mostly in our little friend called PLASMID, remember this guy? I told you about him at the beginning? Yeah, this little guy will be our main protagonist for the rest of the story.
The antibiotic did some selective pressure in your normal flora and the only survivors are those that had the plasmid to resist it, the antibiotic was absorbed and ended up killing all the bad pathogenic bacteria.
By now you are thinking, “ok, I still don’t see the point… what’s so bad about all this, the pathogenic bacteria are dead, and the survivors of my normal flora reproduced and now my normal flora is like super-man, resistant to Antibiotic-over_9000”
Well, then let me tell you what the problem is with that… bacteria have many mechanism of evolution, but the one important in this case is conjugation.
What is conjugation?
This is where bacteria “touch each other with their sexual pillis”( I know, funny right?), and they share plasmids between each other.
You get it now? No? Ok…
Your normal bacteria flora are like any other type of bacteria, they can also share their plasmids with the pathogenic bacteria, so next time you are infected with a pathogenic bacteria, if they happen to come across one of your little friends with a gene against Antibiotic-over_9000, they share it, and as soon as they share it you got a super-resistant-pathogenic bacteria! You can take as much Antibiotic-over_9000 as you want, the bacteria won’t be affected at all, the infection will spread and end up killing the host…
“Wait, so I can’t take any antibiotic at all?”
Well, this whole process won’t happen with a single time use of antibiotic, I exaggerated the story a little bit.
You can take them as long as it’s prescribed by a doctor, and you follow their indication, but what usually happens is:
People feel a little sick and go pop a pill of antibiotic that was left over from the last time they were sick, without the doctor prescribing it
Or if the doctor says, “wait a couple of days to see if the body can deal with it on his own” people go ask another doctor’s opinion, and another, and another, until one actually prescribes antibiotic.
“Wait, so our overconsumption of antibiotic is the problem?”
Yes, and no, we are part of the problem, but to add to this problem many countries around the world use antibiotics year-around on cattle.
Whyy!!!? Don’t they know about super-resistant-x-1000-bacteria?
There are many reasons that they use antibiotics on cattle, i will name two, the most obvious one is so that cows don’t get sick, they sometimes live in bad conditions that are very proponing to develop diseases, the second one is a side effect of the administration of antibiotics, antibiotics make animals fat, yes even people.
“Is this allowed?!”
That depends on which country we are talking about, I’m not very knowledgeable about this, but I think it’s allowed in the USA, China and India, and forbidden in Europe (even though some people don’t care about this law).
So in conclusion:
Overconsumption of antibiotics = bad
Consumption of antibiotics without the doctor prescribing it = bad
Consumption of antibiotics without letting your body deal with the infection first = bad, unless the infection is really bad of course, the doctor will know what to do in this case
Trying to find a doctor that prescribes you antibiotic just to shut you up = bad
Allowing countries to administer antibiotics to livestock = REALLY BAD, this is why we see most of the super-bacteria coming from China, they still allow it…
Remember, I’m just a random guy on the internet, this is my opinion from my own studies, always do your own research and always seek out expert medical opinion! Any questions ask away in the comment section, if I don’t know the answer I will search around.
If you liked the content don’t forget to follow, I’m on winter break from university so I have lots of time and lots of ideas for new content
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