An Overview Of Antibiotics, Soldier Style

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An Overview of Antibiotics

When I found out the older post in this section was cut and pasted from Yahoo answers, I felt compelled to work on my own post that was extracted and sutured from my own brain. The previous answer was given by a registered nurse. I figured, why don’t we let another registered nurse take a shot at the answer?

Just like many inventions and discoveries, penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered when good old Alexander Fleming left his agar plate open and a piece of mold from a nearby cantaloupe landed on top of it. After the incubation period, Alex found that the bacteria on the plate grew everywhere except for an area around what he soon discovered was a mold called pennicillin. Luckily for society, he was well on his way towards figuring out what to do with this new information. I would have thrown the plate in the trash and started a new experiment, then you could say goodbye to your little over-prescribed pacifiers and die. But Alex was a nice guy with a curious mind.

Some of today’s antibiotics are synthesized, but most come from the waste products of living microorganisms. Many different kinds are used, but bacteria are the most common. This is probably because of their easy to modify, ring shaped DNA, and that they are so abundant that they have their own kingdom in taxonomy. So what happens is that they are grown in the most favorable growth media under ideal conditions, allowed to excrete a significant amount of metabolic byproducts, then the byproducts are collected and prepared to be used as antibiotics.

Here is the problem, bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics, so it is up to science to find another antibiotic that will kill or stop these increasingly common pests. So what can they do? They have three options: Select from millions of bacteria that may, by educated guess, excrete the vaccine that kills the resistant bacteria, synthesize an antibiotic, or genetically modify a previously effective bacteria.

It’s very difficult to modify the DNA of a human, mostly because of it’s shape. It’s put together like a double staircase, try not to screw that one up. Bacteria, on the other hand, have a simple ring that is quite a less daunting task for scientists to modify. I saw a video of a scientist performing the procedure, it took about a half hour. If modified correctly, the bacteria will produce a byproduct that is effective against the resistant one.

Now let’s say that we were going to pick a bacterium out of the millions to make the right antibiotic. What would the criteria be besides being able to kill or maim the target disease? Well, it has to grow and multiply quickly. It has to produce substantial amounts of its byproducts or they will not be able to be isolated from the bacteria itself. Finally, it has to be able to produce its byproducts in a short period of time. We don’t have all day here, these drug lords want a cure and they want their logo on it. So a lot of time is spent finding the best growing conditions, testing the bacteria, and testing the antibiotic.

Resistance can be considered a form of evolution on speed. Where multicellular organisms such as ourselves take years to evolve, with the exception of those who don’t believe in it (they never evolve). Single celled organisms, such as bacteria, are capable of evolving within hours to minutes. Having a simple, ring-like DNA structure, a disruption in the environment is capable of disrupting the nucleotide order of the organism. Such a disruption could be the introduction of an antibiotic to the environment. Because of this disruption, some bacteria become different from the others. A select few of these bacteria, by pure chance, become resistant to the antibiotic. As the other bacteria die off, these resistant bacteria proliferate. Due to the lack of competition for food, they are able to multiply and grow at a fairly rapid pace causing the host organism’s illness to continue or even get worse. Since the bacteria have evolved past the susceptibility of a particular antibiotic, another must be used in order to kill them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t usually happen until they have spread to other people through various chains of disease transmission.

It’s been said that bacteria have been mutating at such a rapid pace that there will come a day where antibiotics will no longer work at all. A scrape on the knee could become MRSA. A sinus infection could spread to your entire respiratory tract and kill you. A urinary tract infection could carry dire consequences for your bladder, kidney, and eventually your blood.

There are many more factors in resistance such as bacteria who become infected by viruses and develop unusual capabilities , or what I call "super-powers" such as expelling toxic chemicals. Or why the over-prescribing of certain antibiotics enable resistance, I can't remember. Yes, most of this was from memory, and my last microbiology class was over six years ago. So please, feel free to add to anything or correct any inaccuracies I may have stated in this post. I’ve used quite a large amount of drugs since then so I won’t take offense at any corrections. But I wouldn’t post if I believed that my information was fundamentally flawed.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Excellent information, Soldier.

Would be nice if others also contributed useful info as well, instead of the majority of members solely bent on ordering oxy's and posting nothing of value for other members. Disgraceful.

Got one question for you.

My son's doctor is very keen on prescribing antibiotics almost everytime my son has runny nose, sore throat, or cough.

Personally, I protest that idea for I was taught that if the child becomes accustomed to antibiotics at an early age to ward off sickness, then the child had difficulties naturally developing the natural immunities they so desperately need - especially later on in life.

Is that true? Or am I way off base. It wouldn't be the first time, trust me.

Thanks Soldier,

Slammer

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Excellent information, Soldier.

Would be nice if others also contributed useful info as well, instead of the majority of members solely bent on ordering oxy's and posting nothing of value for other members. Disgraceful.

Got one question for you.

My son's doctor is very keen on prescribing antibiotics almost everytime my son has runny nose, sore throat, or cough.

Personally, I protest that idea for I was taught that if the child becomes accustomed to antibiotics at an early age to ward off sickness, then the child had difficulties naturally developing the natural immunities they so desperately need - especially later on in life.

Is that true? Or am I way off base. It wouldn't be the first time, trust me.

Thanks Soldier,

Slammer
For this one I read a few articles and they concurred with what would have been my initial response. One said that antibiotics do weaken the immune system. Then I noticed a false statement in the article, that by attacking bacteria the body can learn how to better fight then off later. Not true. The body can only do this with viruses such as the chickenpox. The immune system does a blitz attack on any kind of bactria it encounters, there is no learning involved, no special forces. Now do antibiotics stop this attack? Not at all. If anything they team up with the immune system against the infection. The antibiotic may weaken the cell wall of a bacteria and the immune system kills it. So the immune system is still in good shape and got some exercise. The only way to reallly lose immune system strength is by getting something like AIDS or Leukemia.

That being said, antibiotic overuse can kill the good bacteria in the gut making the body prone to yeast infections and general digestive problems. But this is easily remedied by eating yogurt or taking acidophilus supplements.

If your son's doc is prescribing him antibiotics for everything, including what sounds to me like viruses, then he is contributing to the spread of resistant strains of bacteria throughout society.

To make a long story short, your son's immune system isn't being effected by these drugs. They don't lower his white blood cell count or effect his differential (number of white blood cells by type). I'd go more into viruses and memory cells but it's not necessary and I've been in this parking lot way too long.

Hope this helped

 
For this one I read a few articles and they concurred with what would have been my initial response. One said that antibiotics do weaken the immune system. Then I noticed a false statement in the article, that by attacking bacteria the body can learn how to better fight then off later. Not true.....
No, they did not concur. They were written by misinformed homeopaths and kind of insulted my intelligence. I read another that conformed to what I had been taught was true and based my answer on some of the information found in the article.

Where do I go next? There is so much to elaborate on here.

 
Excellent information, Soldier.

Would be nice if others also contributed useful info as well, instead of the majority of members solely bent on ordering oxy's and posting nothing of value for other members. Disgraceful.

Got one question for you.

My son's doctor is very keen on prescribing antibiotics almost everytime my son has runny nose, sore throat, or cough.

Personally, I protest that idea for I was taught that if the child becomes accustomed to antibiotics at an early age to ward off sickness, then the child had difficulties naturally developing the natural immunities they so desperately need - especially later on in life.

Is that true? Or am I way off base. It wouldn't be the first time, trust me.

Thanks Soldier,

Slammer
Amen to that I have a post I need to make about Antibiotics once I got the time. The people who just come here and contribute nothing to the Forum not even a Review of the Vendor Source they got the Medication from to let us know what they think of the quality/pricing/Shipping etc. 


  The problem is Doctors are Prescribing Antibiotics for the reason solely being "Precaution" when they should be only Prescribed as an absolute last resort and or absolute necessity to prevent the out of control Antibiotic Resistance we see. Part of the problem is also caused by people improperly disposing of Antibiotics by dumping them in the garbage bin or flushing them down the toilet. Like it is proven we have small amounts of Antibiotics in certain areas where they are in the Tap Water in Trace Amounts that we Drink from. 

 
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