Antibiotic Threat

There was a time when the question, "When will infectious disease be wiped out?" was a realistic, seemingly achievable question.

Now the new realistic question seems to be, "When will the next deadly plague occur?"

We have read about and feared AIDS and MRSA. Super bug is now a part of our vocabulary as often as the "24 hour bug" was twenty years ago. We find E. coli and Salmonella in our produce and peanuts and who knows what else on an alarmingly regular basis. Old diseases like tuberculosis are "making a come back".

Many infections are able to withstand most, if not all antibiotics. We, however, continue to take antibiotics for the most minor ailments thus causing a plethoa of bacteria and viruses to develop immunity to the drugs that were ironically created to eradicate infections in the first place.

According to the NY Times, there is a "new" bacteria to add to the list. It is Clostridium difficile, an infectious bacterium that attacks as a stomach bug. It causes an estimated 350,000 cases per year in hospitals alone and kills an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people per year.

The disturbing problem with this bacteria is that antibiotics can actually trigger this bacteria to strike. Because antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria in the body, often times upon completion of an antibiotic our immune system is missing the healthy bacteria. If we come in contact with C. difficile, it can create an opportunity for this bacteria to flourish.

The article further states that in some cases the only treatment for C. difficile is to remove the patients colon, and relapses are not uncommon once a patient has recovered.

To read the article in it's entirety, please click here.

Stories like this continue to reinforce to me the importance of a healthy immune system, in addition to thinking twice about taking antibiotics as well as any other pharmaceutical drug unless absolutely necessary.

It also provides yet again incentive to explore the many choices available to us for alternative antibiotics and many other products that help us live healthy and naturally.