Sometimes I like to step back and look at trends in health care discoveries. Way better than individual studies or perspectives, the bigger picture tells a truer story. Most simply, that means considering the new information in context, and not getting overwhelmed by the results of ONE study. The lesson of the current trend, nothing new to those of you familiar with my writing, is that we are hurting ourselves by using too much prescription medication.
I want to tell you more about the individual findings, but if I try to cover all the pieces in one blog, it would be too much. This is the bottom line, big picture message – drop the drugs. I’ll give you smaller pieces now and in the coming blogs.
First up is antibiotic resistance. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control (Here is a link to the report) tells us that roughly 2 million Americans get sick with an infection caused by an antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year. Thats a lot. So is the number who die from those infections (23,000/year). That already-too-scary 23,000 is a “low ball” estimate, though. They decided to count only those who did not have any other illness that might have killed them. Quite often people die of an illness that leads to an infection. So, which then is the cause of death, the initial illness or the infection? In the past, the death estimates were higher because the CDC did not “clean up” the numbers in this way.
The CDC estimates that half of antibiotics prescriptions used by people are inappropriate or unnecessary. In my experience, I’d say that is a gross underestimation. Does that mean that at least 11,500 people died because of inappropriate antibiotic use? I’d say “no” and “yes”, with “yes” being most correct.
Why “no”? That is because most inappropriate antibiotic use occurs with minor illness, especially colds, bronchitis, ear infections and sinus infections. Those illnesses don’t kill people. When someone is seriously ill, giving antibiotics is seldom an overreaction.
The “yes” answer is truer as it gets to more to the heart of the matter.
Just like all living creatures, bacteria prefer life over death. We know that when bacteria, exposed to an antibiotic, mutate to become resistant, they hang on to the new gene. Somehow bacteria recognize that, despite their very limited genetic capacity, it is worth giving up the ability to process certain foods or diminish their lives in some other way in a trade-off to preserve their antibiotic resistance. For how long? Well, studies have shown 50 generations. Yikes!
The bottom line is quite simple. The more we use antibiotics, the less useful they become. The more bacteria see an antibiotic, the more likely they are to become resistant, and then they pass the resistance off to their bacterial friends and families as if it were a precious heirloom. Thats because for them it is. It certainly is not for us.
Human medical care is not the only problem. The use of antibiotics in animal care is a huge factor. Antibiotics are routinely given to animals, whether they are sick or not. Although the horrendous conditions of feedlot crowding lead to many diseases, antibiotics are used to fatten the animals quickly, not just to avoid infections. The animals get bigger faster and that equals bigger sooner payday for the farmer.
Hold on just a minute. Did the implications of that fully sink in? We know that one reason people get fat is the bacteria in our guts. The bacteria in thin people are different from the gut bacteria of fat people. The difference easily adds up to100 calories a day, or about 10-15 pounds of fat a year at a minimum. So, are antibiotics one more factor fattening us up as well? Probably.
I totally love antibiotics. That’s why I do everything possible to avoid using them. We simply MUST do our utmost to preserve antibiotic effectiveness for our children, grandchildren and even for ourselves. This is NOT a future threat. It is here and now.
My points
1- We really antibiotics sometime.
2- Most of the time we don’t need them.
3- Our overuse of antibiotics, causes antibiotic resistance and breeds “super bugs”.
4- Those super bugs make us sick and kill people.
5- Never use antibiotics unless you really have to.