Only a few decades ago, antibiotics were considered to be wonder drugs because they worked so well to cure deadly diseases. Recently, Lord Jim O’Neil who led the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance admitted that a campaign was needed to stop people treating antibiotics like sweets. Prof. Dame Sally Davies UK Chief Medical Officer shares the same fears: “We have reached a critical point and must act now on a global scale to slowdown antimicrobial resistance.”
Leon Chaitow also sheds light on the crisis in antibiotics in an informative book “Natural Alternatives to Antibiotics”. This crisis which has gradually emerged over the past 25 to 30 years is due to the “overuse and misuse” of these potentially life-saving drugs.
Over the past 30 years, many of the bacteria are becoming drug-resistant, so that more and stronger antibiotics are required to control an ever wider and increasing range of potentially serious diseases.
Prof. Robert Baltimore of Yale University reported that “Haemophilus influenza”, which can cause meningitis and was cured with ampicillin, is now resistant to antibiotics in around 20 percent of cases. It has also been estimated that around 90 strains of Staphylococus aureus are now resistant to penicillin and ampicillin.
It is interesting to remember that Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin in 1929, warned that if antibiotics were used inappropriately, bacterial strains would mutate to produce resistance to the drugs.
The worst of all wrong uses is when an antibiotic is used to treat something it cannot control: a virus. Incidentally, almost all throat, chest and sinus infections, as well as all flu and colds, are of viral origin and are therefore totally unresponsive to antibiotics.
Antibiotics are also often prescribed for illnesses that would get better on their own and they are also massively used in agriculture, animal and fruit production, in a seemingly uncontrolled way.
One can define an antibiotic as a substance derived from a living organism which enters the body either by mouth or injection and which then travels via the bloodstream to reach an infected area where it either kills, or in some other way deactivates, an invading microorganism. Incidentally, a substance which is placed onto the surface of the body to control bacterial infection is known as an antiseptic rather than an antibiotic.
Bacteria are all around us, in the air and on almost everything we touch, on our skin, in our mouth, ears, nose and eyes, and they thrive in our digestive tract, where over 400 different species most of them friendly, live.
Leon Chaitow acknowledges that antibiotics are useful in life-threatening situations but warns that we need to stop using them the way they are being used today. Antibiotics are used wrongly when they are prescribed to treat viral infections, when they are given against the wrong bacteria that is ones they cannot combat and also if they are used as broad-spectrum agents when the particular bacteria involved has not been identified thus encouraging resistance.
Moreover, many doctors and dentists prescribe for their patients, broad-spectrum antibiotics, before they perform surgery or a dental extraction, in order to prevent infection or so they think. The evidence is that no benefit is gained from such practices which increase the chances of bacteria developing resistance and cause damage to the friendly flora living in the digestive tract.
The author also stresses the need to learn and adopt other ways which can encourage our immune system to do one of the key jobs it is designed to do that is to control bacteria. We should enhance our immune system in order to defend our body against both external attacks from bacteria, viruses and from internal damage which can lead to serious health problems.
When we are in good health, our defense system, by a process known as “homeostasis”, is able to restore and maintain health by controlling the reactions of the body to invasion and damage. It is important to understand that symptoms are simply evidence of a healing process.
For example if you start to vomit and develop diarrhea after eating something which is “off”, should you do anything to stop the diarrhea and the vomiting? Taking medication might halt the very processes which are trying to get the toxic material out of the body. At the same time, you should keep in mind that maintaining fluid levels in children is vital. Therefore, the correct attitude should be to maintain fluid levels and not to stop the elimination of the poisonous food from the body.
Fever is another symptom which is also part of the treatment. A fever is a signal that the body is dealing with an infection and it is fighting against invading microorganisms. Most bacteria and viruses die when heated, and this is the case when the body temperature rises to 38 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, the first thing people do when they have a fever is to bring it down.
“Fevers which are a response to an infection usually get better faster when they are not treated by drugs which push the temperature down. All this does, in most cases, is to drag the process out for longer. So it is important that we try to overcome the sort of response in which symptoms are treated without thought, so that they are only interfered with if they are dangerous or severe.”
If you have to take antibiotics it is important to know what to do. One should remember that the word “antibiotics” means against life. Indeed, antibiotics cause damage to the friendly bacteria known as ‘probiotics’ that support life, and which thrive in the digestive tract.
If you have to take a course of antibiotics, you should avoid mild doses over long periods and go for a short term but high dosage prescription. It is also recommended you take yogurt or cottage cheese to replenish the friendly colonies of acidophilus in the small intestine and the bifidobacteria present in the large intestine which have been compromised but they must preferably not contain antibiotic residues present in many commercial dairy bacteria. Incidentally, fermented soya products like tofu and miso are almost as good as dairy foods.
It is also suggested that you also take between 2 and 10 grams of vitamin C daily to enhance immune function and you should also ensure adequate liquid intake.
The golden age of antibiotics proved to be a short lived one. During the past few decades many strains of bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics. Leon Chaitow believes that antibiotics should only be used when life is under threat. “Natural Alternatives to Antibiotics” focuses on the need for a greater emphasis on natural immunity and it shows how to keep your immune system in excellent condition and stay healthy without antibiotics.

SOURCE:    http://www.arabnews.com/node/961256/food-health