Excessive use of Antibiotics
Over the years humans have tried every possibility to overcome the health problems, spread of epidemics and infections, disease control and have worked towards a healthy society free of disease and health problems. They have succeeded to a great extent. The book “Good germs, bad germs” describes that though the life expectancy is now far more as it was in previous eras. Epidemic problems and infectious diseases are now getting lesser and lesser and humans are being treated successfully. The hygienic conditions have also been improved so as to ensure least growth of microbes, germs, parasites and bacteria. Antibiotics have been invented to address diseases and infections caused by bacteria and viruses. With all these substantial efforts the biologists, physicians and scientists have triggered another epidemic which is even more severe. They have killed those microbes and bacterial species which were human friendly and as a result of either their disruption or mutation, pathogenic bacteria have even become more active and resistant to treatments. This has led to increased ineffectiveness of antibiotic drugs, low immunity and various infections and inflammatory diseases. The chlorinated water for drinking and food processing along with excessive hygienic conditions indicates our fight against these bacteria and germs. Further, these antibiotics are even given to the livestock which becomes our food and as result many of their resistant germs end up in our digestive tract and other organs. Thus, the war against microbes through excessive cleanliness and use of antibiotics has resulted in antibiotic resistance among humans, which has become one of the prominent problems of medical science
The human body has...
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...standing the nature of relationship between the residing microbes inside human cells and about their function is very important to put an end to this war and to live in peace with the natural organisms that are benefitting human body and their survival has become our primary importance.
References
Aminov,R.I.(2010).A brief history of the antibiotic era: lessons learned and challenges for the future. Frontiers in microbiology,1,1-7. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2010.00134
Blaser,M.J.(2014). Missing microbes: How the overuse of antibiotics is fueling our modern plagues.New York,NY: Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Drlica,K.S.,& Perlin,D.S. (2011).Antibiotic resistance: Understanding and responding to an emerging crisis. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc
Sachs,J.S.(2007).Good germs and bad germs: Health and survival in a bacterial world. New York,NY: Hill and Wang
In short, the book 'Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History' explains the dynamism, the changing interactions between humans and microbes, and the way and extent to which these interactions have influenced the human cultural history. This book is very useful because it tell us that we must strive to understand what makes microbes successful as we are faced with unrelenting microbial drug resistance. Microbes mutate to fatal human pandemics and it’s for this reason that we need to adopt a microbe centric world views.
Jennifer Ackerman's main focus in her article The Ultimate Social Network, is that of the functions concerning bacteria within humans. Although scientists have had presumptions about humans being proficient in governing their body’s innermost structure, they soon come to recognize the sophistication of our inner space which holds an extensive plethora of bacteria and other microorganisms that lie within each and every one of us. Moreover, scientists' new and emerging view of how the human body operates, and the cause of increasing present-day diseases (i.e. obesity and different autoimmune disorders) are uncovered by analyzing effects of certain microbe species in our bodies. By italicizing on points such as the above, in conjunction with bacteria's genetic variations, and modern computing technology, the author proves that scientists are quickly progressing with the characterization the most prevalent species of microbes, which, in her opinion, is definitely paying off.
Secondly, to continue his discussion, he also describes the process in how chemical’s are used in the food we consume. Many of the foods we buy at the supermarket contain a high amount of preservatives, antibiotics, GMO’s, chemicals and other different verity types of lab drugs. He explains how in today’s society it’s common to use these lab-made drugs in our food to span the life of it, then if the drug wasn’t used. For instance, in the book the author Michael Pollan states, “Most of the antibiotics sold in America today end up in animal feed… public health advocates don’t object to treating sick animals with antibiotics; they just don’t want to see the drug lose their effectiveness because factory farms are feeding them to healthy animals to promote growth” (78-79). This passage states that the life saving drug that is originally used to treat any kind
Hats off to bacteria! This article summarizes that bacteria are good for our body and help us function a lot better. Bacteria live in our guts, in our mouths, and on our skin. Overuse of antibiotics has disturbed the bacterial ecosystem, possibly so much that it is irreversible. In 1999 Lawrence Brandt a professor of medicine and surgery at the Albert Einstein College of medicine had success when trying to help a patient combat diarrhea induced by clostridium difficile. A patient developed diarrhea after taking a course of antibiotics for sinusitis; nothing could shake her C.difficile infection. Brandt reasoned the initial antibiotic treatment had killed gut bacteria that promote digestive health; not knowing which strain to replace, he transplanted stool form her husband. That night she reported marked improvement- for the first time in six months. This procedure has helped patients, but hopefully in the future doctors will be able to administer the particular strain of bacteria that is needed. 99% of the bacteria we harbor are resistant to culture in the lab. It was this impossible to study bacteria until the last decade or so, when DNA sequencing techniques allowed researchers to obtain gene sequences from as little as one bacterial cell. With this researchers found that bacteria cells in our bodies outnumber our human cells. Bacterial exposure throughout our lifetime is needed for our wellbeing, thinking, and functioning, contributing to conditions such as diabetes, obesity, allergies, asthma, and atherosclerosis, as well as to anxiety and mood and cognition disorders. These conditions have become more prominent because of our obsession with sanitation has eliminated the exposure to bacteria humans used to routinely get throu...
Throughout history disease has run rampant taking many lives with every passing day. Finding a cure or even just a tool in the battle has been the main focus of scientist throughout time. This focus is what brought us the discovery of antibiotics. Over the years antibiotics have been misused by patients, over prescribed by physicians and have led to resistant strains of bacteria.
our everyday lives bacteria is constantly surrounding us, some of the bacterium that we encounter are beneficial to us but then there are the ones that are severely detrimental to our health. The way that they effect a persons body can differ from person to person. Many of the “microscopic foes” are very resilient and have a very fast reproduction rate. Not only do they reproduce quickly they sometimes seem to outsmart our immune system and not allow our bodies to fight the infection making it almost impossible to stop them. One thing that a lot if people rely on is the assistance of prescription drugs to get them better but even the drugs are not being effective and we can’t stop the pathogens from invading our personal places such as work, home, school, or anywhere. Even though modern medicine is advancing the pathogens could still get the get the best of us. The scary thing is we never know when the next pandemic or epidemic is going to arise. All it needs is some ordinary microbe to swap genes with a deadly germ to produce a “super pathogen” and it could happen to anyone, anywhere, as it did to Jeannie Brown who is from “our neck of the woods”.
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has presented many problems in our society, including an increased chance of fatality due to infections that could have otherwise been treated with success. Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, but overexposure to these drugs give the bacteria more opportunities to mutate, forming resistant strains. Through natural selection, those few mutated bacteria are able to survive treatments of antibiotics and then pass on their genes to other bacterial cells through lateral gene transfer (Zhaxybayeva, 2011). Once resistance builds in one patient, it is possible for the strain to be transmitted to others through improper hygiene and failure to isolate patients in hospitals.
... perspective must go beyond curing bacterial disease right now (3). This understanding must extend to the need to preserve microbial communities that are susceptible to antibiotics, so they will always be able to out-compete resistant strains.
Thesis: With the advent of antibiotics in 1929 Fleming said, "The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops.Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant."With the overuse of antibiotics today we have seen this very idea come to be.Over usage is caused most prevalently by a lack of education on the part of the patient.Thus stated, the way to overcome such a circumstance is to educate, not only the patient but also the physician.
When one thinks of bacteria, what comes to mind? Bacteria are single celled organisms whose main objective in life is to gather nutrient and reproduce asexually. They just grow and divide. Humans have very interesting interactions with bacteria. In our bodies we have one trillion cells that make us who we are. Outside and inside our bodies, we have 10 trillion bacterial cells that help us (dietary functions like making vitamins, creating a barrier against foreign/bad bacteria, helping our immune system, etc.). In terms of DNA, we have 30,000 genes. Bacteria in and on our bodies have about 300,000 genes. So really, we are more bacterial than human, proportionately speaking. Bonnie Bassler and her team worked to figure out just how these small organisms communicate with each other, and what they found is actually quite interesting.
...gests that the world is on the brink of a post-antibiotic era as the numbers of resistant bacteria (superbugs) proliferate, and there is an increase in the number of people dying from previously treatable infections. Todar, (n.d) states, “Society could be faced with previously treatable diseases that have become again untreatable, as in the days before antibiotics were developed.”
Bacteria exist everywhere in the environment and have continuous access to the body through the mouth, nose and pores of skin. Further more, many cells age and die daily and their remains must be removed, this is where the white blood cell plays its role.
Microbiology is a complex subject that spans out into a variety of areas. I am a person who is entering the health care field, and it is inparitive that I know the subject of microbiology and how if effects the world in which we live.
Microbes are microscopic life forms, usually too small to be seen by the naked eye. Although many microbes are single-celled, there are also numerous multi-cellular organisms. The human body has 10-100 trillion microbes living on it, making it one giant super-organism. Since the first link between microbes and diseases was made, people have been advised to wash their hands. Scientists, however, have recently started to investigate more closely how the microbes that call the human body home affect our health. While some microbes cause disease, others are more beneficial, working with our bodies in many subtle ways.
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