It should be noted that the case for “take the antibiotics until the very end of your prescription” isn’t as strong as it was some years ago.
The assumption was that if you don’t take them until the end, strains immune to the antibiotics would survive, making them less effective in the long run. But the problem with this way of thinking is that the bacteria that gains immunity will survive it anyways – in fact a longer exposure to antibiotics rewards the trait of immunity, as evolutionary pressure is higher. There are fewer strains to compete against, as these have been killed by the antibiotics, making the unwanted mutations more likely.
Antibiotics resistance mostly comes from long time exposure to them. At least that’s my understanding, not an expert in the field.
Probably depends on the doctor, how well they keep up with research and their general stance on prescribing antibiotics. I think last time I got some was 15 years ago and back then it was “take till empty” IIRC. But after that no more, which could either mean my infections were never of bacterial nature or that my doctors just deemed not necessary enough.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, from a cursory search it looks like your claims are supported by the literature. The hivemind knows better, I guess.
From the article:
A practical approach in the community setting is to educate patients and advise them that it is safe to cease the antibiotics early if microbiological results exclude a bacterial cause for their symptoms (e.g. negative urine culture or viral acute respiratory infection), or the patient feels better for conditions where the benefit of antibiotics is small and the infection is not severe (e.g. acute respiratory infections).
I imagine it’s from past information that had been communicated on this topic (as the original poster alluded to), it very much was the general understanding that it is important to take the full course for the reasons mentioned, however I am not too surprised that it appears that is not the case, logically the initial claim didn’t make sense, but I figured that was because I’m not into biology much. Interesting to see the counter argument which makes much more logical sense to me.
It should be noted that the case for “take the antibiotics until the very end of your prescription” isn’t as strong as it was some years ago.
The assumption was that if you don’t take them until the end, strains immune to the antibiotics would survive, making them less effective in the long run. But the problem with this way of thinking is that the bacteria that gains immunity will survive it anyways – in fact a longer exposure to antibiotics rewards the trait of immunity, as evolutionary pressure is higher. There are fewer strains to compete against, as these have been killed by the antibiotics, making the unwanted mutations more likely.
Antibiotics resistance mostly comes from long time exposure to them. At least that’s my understanding, not an expert in the field.
Edit: since I got downvoted: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6370607/
wouldn’t the doctors adjust the time they prescribe antibiotics for based on this?
(except for in France, when they give you penicillin for a tiny cut, but you need a prescription for paracetamol)
Probably depends on the doctor, how well they keep up with research and their general stance on prescribing antibiotics. I think last time I got some was 15 years ago and back then it was “take till empty” IIRC. But after that no more, which could either mean my infections were never of bacterial nature or that my doctors just deemed not necessary enough.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, from a cursory search it looks like your claims are supported by the literature. The hivemind knows better, I guess.
From the article:
I imagine it’s from past information that had been communicated on this topic (as the original poster alluded to), it very much was the general understanding that it is important to take the full course for the reasons mentioned, however I am not too surprised that it appears that is not the case, logically the initial claim didn’t make sense, but I figured that was because I’m not into biology much. Interesting to see the counter argument which makes much more logical sense to me.