Antibiotics Can Have Adverse Effects On Your Immune System
- Antibiotics are prescribed to treat bacterial infections and are mostly effective in these cases.
- However, antibiotics can also have harmful side effects, increase bacterial resistance, and sometimes even work against your immune system.
- Antibiotics are not effective against viruses, and overall, they are widely overprescribed and often unnecessary here’s how to know if you should be taking them.
- This article was medically reviewed by Leila Karimpoor, DO, internist and hospitalist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Antibiotics are prescribed to treat bacterial infections, which commonly include strep throat, urinary tract infections, and certain types of pneumonia.
But, antibiotics cannot treat viral infections, such as the common cold or influenza. So, if your sore throat is due to a cold caused by a virus and not strep throat, which is caused by bacteria taking antibiotics is not an effective treatment.
Some research has found that antibiotics may also weaken the immune system’s ability to fight off infection, whether it’s bacterial or not. Here’s what you need to know.
Does Taking Antibiotics Build Up Immunity
Taking more antibiotics than you’re prescribed doesn’t increase immunity or prevent future infections. Research has shown that early use of antibiotics can lead to decreased protective immunity to infections and increased susceptibility to reinfection. It does so by decreasing the capabilities or memories” of our immune cells by constantly exposing them to a threat that is not present.
Treating An Infection In Someone With Lupus
The medical treatment required to treat infection in a person with lupus may be more prolonged than that needed for people who do not have lupus. Treatment depends on the type of infectious agent:
- Bacterial infections are treated with antibiotics. This may include intravenous antibiotics and hospital admission in the case of more serious infections, particularly if the person is using immunosuppressive drugs as part of their lupus therapy.
- Fungal infections are treated with antifungal medications. They may be in the form of creams, suppositories or oral medications.
- Many viral infections dont respond to treatment, and shouldnt be treated with antibiotics. In these situations, your doctor may recommend that you use over-the-counter treatments to help you feel better for the duration of the infection . Antiviral medication may be used in the case of some viral infections .
Some people with lupus will have an allergic reaction to sulfa antibiotics, which may cause increased photosensitivity, skin rashes and lower white blood cell counts. This type of antibiotic should be avoided wherever possible.
You May Like: Can Antibiotics Cause Eczema In Adults
What Does Antibiotic Resistance Mean For Me
Using antibiotics when you don’t need them may mean that they won’t work for you when you do need them in the future.
If you have an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection:
- you will have the infection for longer
- you may be more likely to have complications of the infection
- you could remain infectious for longer, and pass your infection to other people, which increases the problem.
Add Prebiotics And Probiotics
Taking a probiotic can enhance gut health and aid in replenishing the good bacteria in your microbiome. Trubow recommends taking a broad-strain probiotic for at least six months after a course of antibiotics.
After finishing a course of antibiotics, functional medicine doctor Amy Shah, M.D., also recommends eating a healthy prebiotic- and probiotic-rich diet.
Prebiotics help nourish probiotics, and they are found in foods like asparagus, jicama, garlic, and leeks. Probiotics are commonly found in fermented foods, like yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and pickles. “Take it slow in the beginning, as it may be hard to digest some of these things,” Shah adds.
Don’t Miss: Can Antibiotics Cancel Out Birth Control
What Are The Side Effects Of Antibiotics
Like all medicines, antibiotics have the potential to cause side effects. When antibiotics are necessary, the benefits far outweigh the risks, but when they are not needed, you are taking an unnecessary risk.
Up to 10% of people taking an antibiotic may experience these common side effects:
- stomach problems like diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting
- thrush infections, which can affect the mouth and in women can also occur in the vagina .
Other less common side effects include:
- ongoing diarrhoea caused by an intestinal infection, which may be serious and require further investigation and treatment
- allergic reactions, such as hives , fever and breathing problems.
Ask your doctor or pharmacist about the possible side effects of your medicine. You should also ask if there are any medicines you should not take with your antibiotic.
The Consumer Medicine Information for your medicine also lists the most common side effects as well as any interactions with other medicines.
New Study Suggests Antibiotics Can Weaken The Immune System
As more strains of bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, scientists are warning that we could soon return to the “dark ages of medicine,” where our drugs are ineffective against even the most basic of infections. While investigating the side effects of antibiotics and how bacteria can develop resistance to them, researchers from MIT and Harvard have found that the drugs can actually work against the body, weakening the immune system’s ability to fight off the bugs.
To prevent the possible “superbug” doomsday scenario, teams of scientists are developing new treatments that don’t require drugs, such as antimicrobial materials, lights and predatory bacteria. But antibiotics will still play an important part in future treatments, as researchers discover new classes of them or supercharge old ones. And in that vein, it pays to have a better understanding of just what antibiotics are doing to the body.
The new study, conducted by researchers at Harvard, MIT, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Broad Institute, aimed to investigate the ways in which antibiotics affected the body, and how those effects in turn impacted on both the invading bacteria and the host’s immune cells. And the changes weren’t always for the better.
The research was published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.
Also Check: Antibiotic Ointment For Pink Eye
How Do Probiotics Affect Your Immune System
After the last few years of the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in interest in personal health. As we all saw unprecedented levels of illness around the globe, we responded with improved sanitation and disinfection practices and even cut down on the transmission of the virus with masks and social distancing. All of these health practices were effective, and despite the difficulties of the ongoing pandemic, weve continued to march through the days.
However, this whole pandemic has gotten people wondering what they can do to prevent illness from happening in the first place. There are many ways to improve your preventative health care, including your exercise habits and vitamin intake. However, for some of the best preventive results, you should look to your diet.
Though many people dont realize it, our gut health influences the rest of our health, from our immune system to our emotions and even our nervous system! What we eat is essential for getting nutrients and vitamins to power our body, but it goes much much deeper than that. Gut health is a complex topic to think about, but to make things easier, well focus on one of the best ways you can help your gut thrive: probiotics!
Antibiotics May Have Lasting Impact On The Immune System Of Children
Scientists want to know whether taking antibiotics early in life can disrupt your immune system function lifelong.
Regardless of our age, antibiotics at least temporarily wipe out many of the good gut bacteria, or microbiota, that help us digest and use food and eliminate waste. That may be particularly problematic for children because, up to about age 3, this useful group of bacteria also is helping educate their immune system about what to ignore and what to attack, said Dr. Leszek Ignatowicz, immunologist in the Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
That means early antibiotic use may also have a lasting impact on the diversity of children’s immune cells, specifically their T cells, that do both, potentially increasing their lifelong risk of inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and more, said Ignatowicz, principal investigator on a new $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health that will help parse the impact.
“There has to be that balance, and we think that in the early stage of life, balance is achieved by the microbiota dynamically educating plenty of peacekeeping regulatory cells,” Ignatowicz said.
However, an ample microbiota can even help convert some T cells that learned to be effectors in the thymus gland – where T cell education begins – to regulatory cells, he said.
Explore further
Citation
You May Like: Can You Use Triple Antibiotic Ointment On Genital Herpes
Do Antibiotics Weaken Your Immune System
Think back to a time when you were sick. You went to the doctor, and he prescribed you a medication some sort of antibiotic that could get you up and running in a couple of days. Did you every ask yourself: do antibiotics weaken your immune system? As you were swallowing that medication, did you ever wonder how it could target just the bad bacteria? How it would know to destroy only the bad guys while leaving the good ones alone? Well, antibiotics arent that smart. Dont get me wrong, antibiotics have made a huge contribution to medicine, but overuse can lead to more harm than good for your immune system.
How Do Antibiotics Work
Antibiotics work by blocking vital processes in bacteria, killing the bacteria or stopping them from multiplying. This helps the body’s natural immune system to fight the bacterial infection. Different antibiotics work against different types of bacteria.
- Antibiotics that affect a wide range of bacteria are called broad spectrum antibiotics .
- Antibiotics that affect only a few types of bacteria are called narrow spectrum antibiotics .
Different types of antibiotics work in different ways. For example, penicillin destroys bacterial cell walls, while other antibiotics can affect the way the bacterial cell works.
Doctors choose an antibiotic according to the bacteria that usually cause a particular infection. Sometimes your doctor will do a test to identify the exact type of bacteria causing your infection and its sensitivity to particular antibiotics.
Recommended Reading: Can You Take Viagra With Antibiotics
Antibiotics Leave Mice Vulnerable To The Flu
In the new study, Wack and team used a group of mice with healthy gut bacteria at baseline. Over 4 weeks, they gave these mice a mix of antibiotics through their drinking water before infecting them with the flu virus. They also infected some mice that they had not treated with the antibiotic mix so that they could compare the outcomes.
The team noticed that approximately 80% of the untreated mice with healthy gut bacteria survived the infection with the flu virus. Yet, of the mice who had previously received the antibiotic mix, only one-third were able to survive the viral infection.
Inappropriate use not only promotes antibiotic resistance and kills helpful gut bacteria, but may also leave us more vulnerable to viruses, says Wack.
This could be relevant not only in humans but also livestock animals, as many farms around the world use antibiotics prophylactically. Further research in these environments is urgently needed to see whether this makes them more susceptible to viral infections, he argues.
Antibiotic Administration Leads To Gut Microbial Dysbiosis
Since Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic in 1928, thousands of antibiotic substances have been extracted from natural substances or have been artificially synthesized. The emergence of antibiotics has protected humankind from assaults from various pathogenic bacteria and saved millions of lives during the last century. However, extensive use of antibiotics also negatively impacts human health. A growing number of studies have shown that antibiotics can result in microbial dysbiosis, and the disruption of gut microbiota in neonates and adults contributes to numerous diseases, including diabetes, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, autism, and superinfection in critically ill patients.
Recommended Reading: Who Makes Fish Aid Antibiotics
Researchers Found That In Mice Antibiotics Can Directly Remodel The Biochemical Environment Of Cells During Infection Sometimes Deleteriously
By Karen Zusi, Broad Communications
WHAT THEY FOUND
- During antibiotic treatment in mice, the drugs triggered metabolic responses from host cells that could actually protect bacteria
- Metabolites induced by antibiotic treatment made the antibiotic less effective at killing bacteria
- Antibiotic exposure reduced the ability of macrophages to engulf and kill bacteria
WHY IT MATTERS
- Interactions between antibiotics and their environment can inform predictions of how a drug might work in different people or in different infections
- In the face of the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, understanding the complex events following antibiotic treatment is critical for formulating better treatments
Antibiotics normally act in concert with an organisms immune system to eliminate an infection. However, the drugs can have broad side effects, including eliminating good bacteria in the course of fighting off a pathogen. A new study led by researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, MIT, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering has shown that antibiotics can also reduce the ability of mouse immune cells to kill bacteria, and that changes to the biochemical environment directly elicited by treatment can protect the bacterial pathogen. The work was published today in Cell Host & Microbe.
Do I Need Antibiotics For A Common Cold Or The Flu
Good-quality, reliable clinical studies have shown that antibiotics do not improve the symptoms of a cold or the flu. This is because antibiotics work only on infections caused by bacteria common colds and the flu are infections caused by viruses.
Antibiotics will not
- help a cold or the flu get better faster
- stop a cold or the flu from getting worse or
- stop a cold or the flu from spreading to other people.
If you are usually healthy and well, your immune system will take care of most respiratory tract infections both viral and some bacterial infections by itself.
However, antibiotics are more likely to be needed for people who:
- have serious infections caused by bacteria
- have an ongoing health condition
- are older or in generally poor health, or have a weakened immune system
- have a higher risk of complications with a respiratory tract infection .
Using antibiotics when you don’t need them can contribute to the problem of antibiotic resistance. This might mean that if you have a serious infection, such as pneumonia, in the future, antibiotics may not work as well.
Read Also: Can I Buy Antibiotics At The Store
Too Few Fruits And Veggies
These foods may help your body make more of the white blood cells you need to fight off infections. Fresh produce and nuts and seeds pack a lot of zinc, beta-carotene, vitamins A, C, and E, and other nutrients you need for a healthy body. Plant-based foods also fill you up with fiber, which helps lower your body fat percentage, which can strengthen your immune response.
How To Rebuild Immune System After Antibiotics
It is a fact that the immune system gets weaker after prolonged use of antibiotics. But the immune gets back to its strength when you stop the antibiotic.
Generally, you need to maintain a healthy immune system because it is the body soldier. The immune fights infections and diseases.
Follow the instructions above on how to rebuild immune system after antibiotics.
You will be fine and have high resistance to infections.
You May Like: How To Treat Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria
Are There Any Special Precautions To Take When I Travel
Because you are at particular risk of infection, it is wise to plan very carefully for travel. Have all travel vaccinations advised for your destination. Avoid going to places where you wouldn’t have access to good medical care if you became ill. Travel with information about your condition and medication in case you need the help of a health professional while away from your usual doctor. Check your travel insurance covers you if you become ill. Discuss with your doctor and consider taking some “in-case” antibiotics and instructions for when to take them if you are at risk of specific infections. Take the usual precautions to avoid food poisoning/traveller’s diarrhoea if visiting somewhere this might be a risk.
And finally, if travelling somewhere hot, use plenty of high-factor sun cream to protect your skin.
How Do Antibiotics Fight Infections
Antibiotics are common medications, but they are also sophisticated weapons that kill or stun bacteria in your body. There are a number of different types, and they work in a variety of ways against different types of bacteria.
Its important to know that antibiotics work by killing bacteria, so theyre effective only when you have an infection caused by bacteria in your body. This is different from vaccines, which can shield you from infections caused by bacteria or viruses that you might encounter in the future.
Some antibiotics directly kill bacteria. These are called bactericidal antibiotics. Other antibiotics are bacteriostatic. This means that they slow bacteria down, giving your immune system time to catch up. Either way, antibiotics can stop a bacterial infection from spreading.
Because antibiotics attack bacteria that are living in your body, theyre most effective when youre already sick with an infection.
What about antiseptics?
Antiseptics are different from antibiotics because they arent targeted weapons. Instead, they are harsh chemicals that kill just about everything. Antiseptics are helpful for cleaning surfaces, because they can kill bacteria, viruses, and parasites but they also harm living cells. For that reason, antiseptics cant be taken as medication.
Don’t Miss: What Antibiotics Do You Take For Pneumonia
