From use to harm - one step
Until the 20th century, infectious diseases were the leading cause of death. Today it is quite difficult to imagine that ordinary flu was able to kill millions of people. Nevertheless, this is exactly the case: the famous "Spaniard" of 1918-1919 killed, according to various estimates, 50-100 million people, or 2.7-5.3% of the world's population. Then, about 550 million people were infected - 29.5% of the world's population. Beginning in the last months of the First World War, the Spaniard quickly surpassed the number of victims this largest bloodshed of that time. It is not surprising that throughout history, mankind has been looking for ways to combat infectious agents. A drastic change in the situation began in the early twentieth century, when the English bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic penicillin in 1928. Already by 1944, when American research groups and manufacturers were able to establish an industrial production of penicillin, mortality from bacterial wound infections in the fields of World War II declined sharply.Is it only good?
Undoubtedly, with the invention of antibiotics, world medicine has made a huge step forward. Many diseases, previously considered incurable, have receded into the past. Suffice it to say that at the end of the 19th century, infectious diseases accounted for 45% of the total mortality structure of the population. In 1980, this figure was reduced to only 2%. The leading role in such a significant change was played by the discovery of antibiotics.However, as any physician knows, absolutely safe medicines are not effective. This applies to antibiotics in full measure. In the second half of the twentieth century, doctors all over the world prescribe drugs of this group to millions of patients, including children, as a result of which today mankind suffers from obesity, diabetes, allergies, asthma and other serious diseases. It turned out that antibiotics, while destroying harmful infectious microorganisms, both at the same time are extremely detrimental to the normal internal microflora of the human body, in the first place - to the microorganisms of the intestines necessary for proper digestion.
What threatens dysbiosis?
The replacement of the normal intestinal microflora by the pathogen as a result of taking antibiotics, or dysbiosis, usually does not occur in one day - and this is the main danger. Few can associate periodically recurring digestive disorders, stool disorders with taking antibacterial drugs.At the same time, the diagnosis of antibiotic-associated diarrhea is confirmed annually in 5-30% of patients who received antibiotic therapy! Most of them complain of permanent or recurrent upset of the stool, which occurs as a result of a violation of the metabolism of bile acids and carbohydrates in the intestine. This is because the amount of microorganisms necessary for proper digestion is sharply reduced in the body. A change in the composition of the intestinal microflora, in turn, leads to a malfunction in the work of many of the most important systems of the human body, primarily the immune system.
In this case, the person taking antibiotics, without any apparent cause, has a variety of diseases: atopic dermatitis, eczema, recurrent cystitis, frequent SARS, autoimmune colitis, obesity, hyperlipidemia, etc. Unfortunately, attempts to eliminate manifestations of these diseases without affecting the underlying cause - intestinal dysbiosis - do not bring a long-term stable result. And yet in 1993 the French scientist J. Pulvertye conducted a study that proved: the use of antibiotics in the first 2 years of a person's life, regardless of the effect of other factors, increases the incidence of asthma, atopic dermatitis and eczema by 4-6 times!
Is it only harm?
What to do in a situation where antibiotic treatment is necessary for life? The answer seems obvious: it is necessary to minimize the negative impact of the antibiotic on the internal microflora of the body. Approximately from the middle of the twentieth century, scientists in different countries began to search for substances that could "hedge" our body when taking antibiotics. In 1954, for the first time, the term "probiotic" (Greek "pro" - for, and "bios" - "life") first appeared, which became known as preparations that protect the microflora from destruction.Today, there are many different probiotic drugs, which can reduce the harm caused to the body by taking antibiotics. So, the polycomponent means of rioflora balance allows to protect the digestive tract due to the high content of probiotic microorganisms: bifido- and lactobacillus, as well as streptococci. These natural microorganisms have an immunostimulating effect due to the normalization of the composition of the intestinal microflora. However, this provision is valid only for drugs with a strictly defined number of strains / species of bacteria, the number of bacteria confirmed by the "survival" of bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, efficacy, safety and the observed shelf life. With a competent choice of a probiotic and observance of the recommendations of the attending physician, antibiotic treatment will relieve the infectious disease without leaving unpleasant "reminders" both in the immediate and in the distant future.