You already know that antibiotics disrupt the useful bacteria in your gut. But what about other types of medications? How do non-antibiotics affect stomach bacteria?
A Shift in Balance
Your digestion is in a delicate balance. Any small change can bring a great deal of unpleasantness.
Researchers say that many types of medications can cause negative changes in this balance. Out of the 923 drugs they ran tests on, 250 caused a disruption in stomach bacteria.
So what are the implications of this discovery? Why is it important to know how non-antibiotics affect stomach bacteria?
Here are some important questions scientists still need to explore:
- Why Do Some Medications Function for Some People and Not Others?
Unfortunately, not everyone reacts the same way to common drugs. In many cases, doctors don’t know in advance whether a medication will work for you. You have to try it out and see.
There are various reasons for this phenomenon. A disruption in gut flora could be one of the reasons. After all, everyone’s gut bacteria are slightly different.
Hence, this discovery could help improve personalized medical treatments. But why else is it useful?
- Will We Develop a Resistance to Antibiotics?
You probably know that the overuse of antibiotics is dangerous. After all, bacteria change and evolve. We may end up with new strains of illnesses that are resistant to antibiotics.
However, this discovery about non-antibiotics has some additional implications. Could we be risking a resistance to antibiotics every time we take any kind of drug? Changes in our gut bacteria could be dangerous to everybody.
A Final Word
There is still a lot of research scientists need to do on this topic. It is crucial to find a safe way to take medications.
