Are Antibiotics That We are Taking, Slowly Killing Us?

In a Denmark Study, people who “redeemed five or more antibiotic prescriptions over the course of a 15 year period were much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared with those who took antibiotics’ only noe or two times. Other diseases were also appearing that may be the result of altering the bacteria in our intestine finding associations with “obesity, inflammatory and autoimmune disorders and even depression”.

Since the 1940s with the discovery of antibiotics, the focus was to kill all of the bad ‘germs’ in our body, but maybe we just killed off the good ‘germs’ in the process and without these good ‘germs’, we found ourselves with many other diseases.  Children may have been over-treated causing more asthma and a tendency to obesity.

I have read much about the value of our ‘gut’ to help our immune system function properly. The learning curve is very steep at this time and it seems that in almost every medical journal now appearing, we are learning that our intestine is really a functioning part of our immune system, something I never learned in medical school.

I found myself being asked many times by patients to give them an antibiotic for a flu. I know it did not work against a virus, but the patients would demand antibiotics and although I may have been one of the few doctors who resisted such calls for antibiotics, I could not always stand my ground. So what I am telling you here is not to demand Antibiotics when you are not feeling well, as you might be harming yourself if you took them unnecessarily.

This was discussed in New Scientist, April 8-13, Pages 39-41.