3 ms·
Random thought. Do antibiotics kill any sort of permanent seemingly benign outside bacteria in the body? Did we historically have more ongoing internal invaders
by _DeadFred_ 1y ago
Random thought. Do antibiotics kill any sort of permanent seemingly benign outside bacteria in the body? Did we historically have more ongoing internal invaders than we do now because we now have antibiotics? I guess I'm asking did we used to have persistent, ongoing infections that now get wiped out every so often as a side effect of taking antibiotics?
- Vrondi 1y agoNot just antibiotics to consider along this line of thought. We historically had a higher load of parasites. Far more of the population had some amount of parasites more of the time. Things like sewer systems/sanitation/clean drinking water/bathing and personal hygiene/wearing shoes/not having piles of animal feces all over the streets. That all changed the amount of exposure to parasites for the common person. We know it affected our immune systems (overall rates of allergies increased). We do not know how it affected our brains. Makes intuitive sense that it must apply to bacteria as well. Before foods were pasteurized (and before refrigeration), for example, we were exposed to more dietary sources for bacteria, both beneficial and non-beneficial.
- Llamamoe 1y agoSometimes. Not reliably. I've seen studies correlating antibiotic therapy with reduced dementia rates in the next 5 or 10 years or something, but you can just as well wipe your gut microbiome and open it up to opportunistic pathogens.