What Everybody Ought to Know About Antibiotics

The first thing you should know about antibiotics is that it is  not an all cure drug for an infection. It is only effective against bacteria but ineffective against viral and fungal infections. Did you know that approximately 90 percent of infections are due to viruses? Antibiotics could not even slow down the viruses or reduce the symptoms so, it is better not to take a pill of antibiotic unless your doctor prescribed it.

Our body instantly produces antibodies that could fight against the usual cause of an infection, the viruses. So, better take home remedies  or give medicines that could relieve the symptom of illness than instantly taking a pill of antibiotic without doctors prescription to relieve the symptoms of an infection like cough, colds and diarrhea.

Antibiotics’ worst side effect is it could eliminate the protective good bacteria and replace them with bacteria resistant to antibiotics. So, better not take an antibiotic without doctor’s prescription. Home remedies and medicines to relieve symptoms is of great help (first aide) to lessen the symptoms of illness but it does not relieve the true illness. So, better consult your doctor if symptom persist.

Did you know that approximately 8 percent of adult population now are allergic to penicillin? And, what is the reason behind this? Penicillin is one of the most abused antibiotics. Repeated intake of antibiotic could cause allergic reaction.

I met lots of people who became resistant to certain antibiotics because of not following their doctor’s order to when or how often to take the prescribed antibiotics and to how many days they should take those prescribed drugs. Their samples like blood, sputum, urine and wound discharge are need to be cultured first to check the sensitivity and, or resistance of the possible antibiotics to be prescribe to them.

Why wait to experience the side effects of taking antibiotics before you will learn? Hope you share this piece of information to others if you care for their health.

Sources of Food Poisoning

Nowadays, people become more aware that food poisoning could take place in any food. Eggs, poultry, shellfish, and unpasteurized dairy products are the most common source of food poisoning. But, contamination of plant foods from food poisoning bacteria takes place when vegetables, legumes or nuts are grown closely to the ground, especially when farmers uses manure as fertilizer. Food handling is another issue. Food from farm are free from  food poisoning agent but the one that sells the unsealed food products in the market or the person that processed the product or the one that cooks your meal harbors the harmful microorganism and has poor hygiene, possibility of transmission from the food handler to the food products is possible.

If animals are ill, usually they were given  antibiotics, giving antibiotics without following the minimum number of days to  give the antibiotics to the animals may lead to resistance of bacteria to the said antibiotic. When these infected animals (with antibiotic resistant bacteria) were utilized as meat or their products such as eggs or their manure are utilized in the farm as fertilizer, infection of antibiotic resistant food poisoning bacteria to human will be a big problem. The problem of antibiotic resistance food poisoning  bacteria is not the main issue, but the difficulty in treatment of such strain may occur.

Another possible source for food poisoning are foods that has been improperly processed or stored are the ideal habitat for growth of bacteria and fungal elements (in the laboratory, it is equivalent to a culture media – it is where we let the bacteria and fungal elements multiply from thousands into hundred thousands or more). So, be careful in processing and storing your food at home. Most of the microorganisms  if it multiplies, usually causes spoilage of food, others may just give light discomfort to those have consumed the food but some of this bacteria are dangerous, especially those that contains toxins (poisons).

Contaminated water and utensils are good source of possible infection. In this case usually the food handler harbors the harmful microorganism then he practice no proper hygiene. Including the right cleaning of utensils used due to limited amount of water to use by the time he is selling his food products. Good example for this are the street foods. I am not condemning  street food vendors here. We just need to face the fact that lots of people have been hospitalized from eating contaminated street foods.

Remember this, cooking could kill viruses, bacteria and fungal elements present on the food but it is not an assurance that the toxins present are destroyed, toxins in bacteria  that could create variety of problems in the body.