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In class this week we read an article called "The Miracle Drug And Superbugs," which was about antibiotics, why we need them, and why we don't. We've been learning about microbes this quarter- previously, we covered fungi, the "supreme recycler," and now we're learning about bacteria and moving into viruses. This article has made me want to learn even more about the history of antibiotics and other medicines - what are the great medical leaps and mistakes of history?
Microbes
The article we read this week was mainly about antibiotics and their effects. However, to understand how antibiotics work, we must also understand
what they work against -
and what they don't.
The two main types of microbe that cause people to get sick are bacteria and viruses. Aside from that, however, they are different in almost every way.
Bacteria are tiny - single-celled organisms, in fact - but viruses are smaller still, minuscule enough to get
inside a single-celled bacterium. Bacteria can live anywhere they can find food (which is to say, almost everywhere), but viruses need a living organism - a host - to survive and reproduce.
Another key difference is that while bacteria are alive, bacteria aren't - they're basically just little pieces of genetic material wrapped in proteins. They can't grow or reproduce unless they've found a cell to use as a host.
As well, from a human perspective, bacteria can be both good
and bad, but viruses, to us, are pretty much only bad.
Finally, bacteria can be recognized as invaders by antibiotics and be killed. Viruses, on the other hand, are unable to be detected by antibiotics once they're within a host, and are therefore completely immune to antibiotics.
How Antibiotics Work
So, we know that viruses resist antibiotics, and bacteria don't. But what is an antibiotic, anyway?
Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, and mass produced and put to use by 1940, thanks to Howard Florey and his team of researchers. It was discovered when Fleming left a petri dish of staphylococcus open, to be contaminated by a mold - called penicillium - growing on his windowsill. Fleming noticed that where the bacteria was affected by the mold, it had stopped growing and started dying. This was the beginning of his - and eventually Florey and co.'s - discovery of penicillin, which would lead to the development of a number of other antibiotics.
An antibiotic is a substance that controls/terminates the growth of bacteria. It usually works by preventing the bacteria from reproducing and multiplying, but a few work by just killing the bacteria outright.
When You Don't Need Them
After antibiotics really hit the public in the 1940s, for a while, they became the solution to every problem, big or small, and, importantly, viral or bacterial. Antibiotics were administered even when people didn't need them - when their sickness was caused by a virus instead of bacteria,, when they'd get over it without medicine (strengthening their immune system), or both.
And unfortunately, taking antibiotics is one of the cases for which"you can have too much of a good thing" applies, and we, as a species, have had too much of that good thing.
Taking antibiotics when you don't need them leads to bacterial resistance, also known as antibiotic resistance or just plain "resistance." It's basically when certain bacteria, who've been previously exposed and adapted to an antibiotic, are able to resist it. When the resistance bacteria are among a population, natural selection takes over and eventually the entire population is made up of these resistant bacteria, called superbugs.
Friend or Foe?
When penicillin and other antibiotics first hit the market during World War II, they were lauded as "the miracle drug." Millions of soldiers (in addition to, of course, normal citizens)had been dying due to bacterial infections in the tiniest of cuts. Penicillin perfectly solved the problem, and many people, at the time, found it miraculous.
Now, however, they are no longer known as the miracle drug. While once they were presumed to cure everything, we now know that they sometimes even hurt instead of help, such as with bacterial resistance.
Because of this, antibiotics are now sometimes labeled "bad medicine." Not only does overuse of antibiotics lead to bacterial resistance, but recent research shows that too much exposure to antibiotics and antibacterials can actually stunt your immune system and, as I mentioned last week, antibiotics kill the good bacteria in your gut too, and if you overuse antibiotics even probiotics can only do so much.
Prescribing Medicine
This knowledge of bacteria and viruses and overuse of antibiotics is very applicable to real life situations. For instance, every year, my family gets our share of colds, sore throats, and stomach bugs. We rarely go to the doctor for these illnesses - for that type of sickness, we tend to proceed on the assumption we'll get over it given enough time - but when we do, it's usually because said sickness is much worse than usual, in which case I
do expect a prescription for some type of medicine - perhaps antibiotics.
In my case,it's because I believe we shouldn't even go to the doctor unless the cold or virus is bad enough to require treatment, but in general, I think it's a result of our society's tendency to automatically expect a medical/scientific/artificial solutions to our health problems (like I explained last week in terms of probiotics) and tend to undervalue our bodies' built-in protection and natural remedies.
Natural Remedies
Natural remedies are one of the most promoted alternatives to antibiotics.These remedies include compounds found in natural foods, such as Chilean avocados (lowers amount of antibiotics needed when fighting off bacterial infections) and Manuka honey (powerful antibiotic properties, especially against staphylococcus aureus) as well as the broader category of vitamins, such as vitamin C (antiviral and cancer therapy) and vitamin D (fights colds and the flu), or even simple herbs such as garlic, which is antibacterial and antifungal.
These remedies, among others, are advocated as the better, hidden alternative to antibiotics. As I said before, in our society, we tend to expect artificial solutions to our problems - hence our consistent leaning towards antibiotics over natural remedies, even when they appear to have many of the same benefits. However, while the article we read wholeheartedly suggests natural remedies as the perfect alternative to antibiotics, I find that I am slightly skeptical.
I believe the science proving the benefits and effectiveness of natural remedies just as I believe the science that showed first the benefits and then the downsides of using antibiotics.I think that the natural remedies the article professed as "not only the safest, but... also far more effective" are just as effective and perhaps safer than our current antibiotics, however I believe that depending as completely on natural remedies now as we did on antibiotics in the past would be a mistake.
Some natural remedies, such as the Chilean avocado, might, with overuse, face the same issues as antibiotics - after all, isn't it plausible that the bacteria could learn to resist the compound in those avocados as they are learning to resist the chemicals in our antibiotics? Other remedies, such as vitamins C and D, might be too general a solution to work completely in specific cases of bacterial infection. In fact, it seems to me that that type of vitamin is really less of a remedy and more of a preventative measure against such infections
My point is that neither antibiotics nor natural remedies are humankind's perfect solution to bacterial illnesses and infections. However, I do believe that the use of both demonstrates humanity's unique way of adapting in response to bacteria's adaptations - that our own adaptations are actually the only real solution to the bacteria causing illness and adapting to thwart our cures. Antibiotics and natural remedies can both be used in moderation or, in the case of natural remedies, in addition to the new cures and remedies I'm confident our species will find/create in our latest move in the long chain of adaptations that represents our interaction with bacteria and the world around us as a whole.
When microbes like bacteria are metaphorically the very glue that holds our web of life together, we can't expect that just killing as many as we can or eating our vegetables will be our permanent solution. The fact is, when dealing with creatures that are so integral to our ecosystem, there just isn't a permanent solution when some of these creatures harm you instead of help you. We must simply accept that we live in a universe built on change, and that, to survive, we must accept and thrive on that change.
