All About Antibiotics
Antibiotics are a type of medicine used to treat bacterial infections.
There are bacteria all around us, on us and even in us. Believe it or not, there are 1.3 bacteria for every one human cell in your body. If you consider that the average human body is made up of 37.2 trillion cells, then that means we are sharing our bodies with nearly 50 trillion bacteria!
To stay healthy, we need to maintain a healthy balance of good bacteria (normal flora) while selectively getting rid of the potentially harmful (pathogenic) bacteria that can cause infections.
What are pathogenic bacteria?
Pathogenic bacteria are bacteria that can cause disease. Most bacteria are harmless (or even beneficial), with fewer than 100 of 30,000 identified species known to cause infectious diseases in humans.
Some bacteria will cause disease no matter what (ex. Mycobacterium tuberculosis which causes tuberculosis).
Other bacteria will only cause illness when they are either displaced into a new environment (ex. intestinal bacteria ending up in the bladder) or when their numbers multiply in sufficient quantity to disrupt the body’s delicate bacterial balance (ex. Clostridium difficile overtaking the large intestines and causing diarrhea).
How do bacteria cause damage?
Bacteria can cause illness in one of three ways:
◎Direct: Not often, but sometimes, bacteria can cause damage by using the host cell for nutrients and then producing harmful waste products. For example, the bacteria, Streptococcus mutans, a component of dental plaque, metabolizes dietary sugar and produces acid as a waste product. The acid can then damage the tooth surface causing cavities.
◎Toxin Production: When gram-negative bacteria are destroyed by antibiotics or our immune system, they disintegrate, releasing an endotoxin (an illness-producing substance) that can cause a lot of damage to the organs and systems of our bodies.
◎Indirect: Sometimes we end up harming our own selves via an excessive or inappropriate immune response triggered by an infection.
What do antibiotics do?