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By: Ikedi Ani-okoye.

Antibiotics explained

Antibiotics are medicines that have anti-bacterial properties. This means that they are drugs that can kill bacteria or prevent them from multiplying within our body. However, they are ineffective against viruses which cause the common cold and viral influenza.

Antibiotic concerns

But the use of antibiotics has not been an unmixed blessing. Why not? Because of the very nature of antibiotics. The name itself should prove a warning, for it comes from two roots: anti, meaning "opposed," and bio, meaning "life."

So an antibiotic is an agent opposed to life, that is, it is a killer. A killer of what? Of germs, bacteria, microbes, for which reason "antimicrobials" seems to be preferred in medical literature. "Antimicrobiais" are said to have "toxicity," that is, poisonous characteristics as well as other harmful potentials in addition to therapeutic qualities.

Using Antibiotics properly

There are articles about the overuse of antibiotics and its dangers. One of the dangers was the mutation of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Alexander Flemming, the man who discovered penicillin, warned that the overuse of this miracle drug might lead to problems with resistant bacteria "super bugs"; therefore antibiotics should only be used in cases of life or death.

It's unfortunate that his warning was not taken seriously, for it's no secret that antibiotics have been used and abused as a medicine of convenience. In addition, most people consume a small steady dose of antibiotics by eating commercially grown meats, poultry and farm raised fish. It's time to pay the piper, for "super bugs" are now a very serious threat and have already taken the lives many people throughout our country.

Antibiotics in plants

They found that those plants that were grown in soil that was modified with liquid hog manure, which contains the common veterinary antibiotic sulfamethazine, actually absorbed this antibiotic. It could be found in the plants' leaves.

There were also concentrations in the plants' tissue. This concentration actually increased as the amount of antibiotic present in the manure increased. It was also diffused into potato tubers. As such, it is believed that other root crops, which include such things as carrots and radishes, are also particularly vulnerable to antibiotic contamination.

CONCLUSION

Antibiotics are among the most frequently prescribed medications in modern medicine. Some antibiotics are 'bactericidal', meaning that they work by killing bacteria. Other antibiotics are 'bacteriostatic', meaning that they work by stopping bacteria multiplying.