Four ways to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use for chest colds....
Today's Post: Tuesday, 3-2-2010
1. Last Thursday, 2-25-2010, Reuters had a story with this headline:
“Simple test could cut excessive antibiotic use.”
Reporter Kate Kelland explains that German researchers found that testing for a marker of bacterial infection known as procalcitonin (PCT) identified patients whose chest or other upper respiratory infections would respond to antibiotics, and could prevent the other patients getting unnecessary or much less effective antibiotics.
(“In healthy people, PCT concentrations are low, but in those with bacterial infection it occurs at high concentrations in the blood as early as 3 hours after infection. In people with viral infections, PCT levels rise only marginally, if at all.”)
These researchers said that antibiotic use would be reduced by over 40 % if using this test became the normal procedure.
In such infections, fever and thick and colored mucous can indicate bacterial infection but many times can be from a viral infection only. This test can help doctors tell which is which.
Within the past couple of months there was a news story about a hospital in Norway that had a much lower incidence of antibiotic resistant bacteria by rigorously having all its doctors avoid using antibiotics unless it was extremely important to do so. In that hospital, if it could be done safely antibiotics were never used.
Last Thursday’s story had this important statement: “The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said last year that overuse of antibiotics in the region was building widespread resistance to a level with could threaten modern medicine.”
That’s extremely important. People used to die from infections from accidents and relatively simple and uncomplicated surgeries. With antibiotics that stopped being the case.
But if we fail to limit their use in people and in livestock to the minimum we can safely do, such infections will again kill people we otherwise could have saved.
Unfortunately, we are heading in that direction now.
So, it is my sincere hope that this screening test is adopted world-wide and adopted quickly.
2. We can use the ways to treat milder chest and similar infections that limit them to a level of severity where antibiotics will rarely be needed.
If the viral infection is well treated, we may escape the person getting a secondary bacterial infection that would need antibiotics.
a) One way to do that is to make sure people with milder chest and similar infections or fevers drink a substantial amount of water and other drinks that contain water.
Doctors do routinely say to do that. But they usually do NOT make a sufficiently big deal of it and sell their patients on how useful and essential it is to do.
People who do this who have fevers may still be sick and feel bad; but they do NOT also become faint, weak, and dangerously debilitated. People who only drink if they notice they are thirsty all too often do have ALL those things happen.
Worse, they are far more likely to develop a secondary bacterial infection or have the one they have overwhelm their immune system enough to indicate or require antibiotic treatment.
b) Using relatively hot tea or green tea, relatively hot cocoa, and relatively hot chicken or vegetable broth with olive oil soup – or real fruit juice high in vitamin C are particularly good choices.
These have extra health and disease fighting effects and can be enjoyable enough to drink that drinking extra is easier and being sick is not quite so obnoxious.
c) Drink relatively hot chicken or vegetable broth with olive oil with chili or red pepper added or Cajun style spices with red pepper, paprika, and garlic powder.
This can make a so, so tasting broth taste really good. And, once the feeling of heat wears off, it can have a soothing effect on a sore or scratchy throat.
Having just had the occasion personally to drink some heated chicken broth for that purpose and using the Cajun spices just listed in it, I can testify to how much of a comforting effect that had. It tasted great. And I felt MUCH better for an hour or so after I drank each cup!
d) You can also eat Mexican or Chinese dishes that have a lot of these kinds of hot spices added more than once a day while you are sick with chest and similar infection.
You may have noticed that when you eat such foods anytime that you often will find that you begin to feel sweat on your forehead and your nose will get a bit runny.
That makes any of these hot foods and drinks a sound treatment to prevent added or worse bacterial infection because it thins your mucous enough for your body to get rid of it easily or more easily instead of remaining thick and inside you where the bacteria grow in it.
You may find you have to cough a bit extra or blow your nose a bit extra shortly afterwards from this effect. But you’ll feel more cleared out and feel and be less sick once you do.
3. You can do things that keep your immune system strong enough to prevent you from getting most such chest and related infections and to get rid of them more easily.
One of the easiest ways to do that & one that now looks to be one of the most powerful to do is to take an adequate amount of vitamin D3. We now know that this is between 2,000 and 5,000 iu a day, particularly in the winter months when colds, flu, and upper respiratory infections are most common.
In fact, taking that much D3 does so much for your immune system, they are now finding that doing this prevents many cancers and looks to prevent autoimmune diseases as well.
Since bottles of 1,000 iu capsules of D3 that contain 100 capsules cost less than $8 including tax almost everywhere in the United States, doing this is quite affordable.
4. We can also prevent avoidable chest and related bacterial infections with vaccines.
a) One common cause of secondary chest and related bacterial infections is to get the flu. But people who get the flu shot each fall, get the flu less often and often have a milder case when they do get it.
So, if most people who do not now do so, get the flu shot, we will need less antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections in people who didn’t get the shots.
b) Even more to the point, you can prevent between 70 & 90% of bacterial pneumonia be getting the pneumonia vaccine every 5 to 10 years. And, since that does need antibiotics to treat who people get it, having virtually everyone get the pneumonia vaccine will cut the antibiotic use we see.
It also slashes the risk of getting really sick or dying from bacterial pneumonia for the people who get it.
The more doctors who know to use and recommend these things and the more of use who do them, the less avoidable antibiotics will be used.
And, far less of us will get sick or very sick than do now.
Today's Post: Tuesday, 3-2-2010
1. Last Thursday, 2-25-2010, Reuters had a story with this headline:
“Simple test could cut excessive antibiotic use.”
Reporter Kate Kelland explains that German researchers found that testing for a marker of bacterial infection known as procalcitonin (PCT) identified patients whose chest or other upper respiratory infections would respond to antibiotics, and could prevent the other patients getting unnecessary or much less effective antibiotics.
(“In healthy people, PCT concentrations are low, but in those with bacterial infection it occurs at high concentrations in the blood as early as 3 hours after infection. In people with viral infections, PCT levels rise only marginally, if at all.”)
These researchers said that antibiotic use would be reduced by over 40 % if using this test became the normal procedure.
In such infections, fever and thick and colored mucous can indicate bacterial infection but many times can be from a viral infection only. This test can help doctors tell which is which.
Within the past couple of months there was a news story about a hospital in Norway that had a much lower incidence of antibiotic resistant bacteria by rigorously having all its doctors avoid using antibiotics unless it was extremely important to do so. In that hospital, if it could be done safely antibiotics were never used.
Last Thursday’s story had this important statement: “The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said last year that overuse of antibiotics in the region was building widespread resistance to a level with could threaten modern medicine.”
That’s extremely important. People used to die from infections from accidents and relatively simple and uncomplicated surgeries. With antibiotics that stopped being the case.
But if we fail to limit their use in people and in livestock to the minimum we can safely do, such infections will again kill people we otherwise could have saved.
Unfortunately, we are heading in that direction now.
So, it is my sincere hope that this screening test is adopted world-wide and adopted quickly.
2. We can use the ways to treat milder chest and similar infections that limit them to a level of severity where antibiotics will rarely be needed.
If the viral infection is well treated, we may escape the person getting a secondary bacterial infection that would need antibiotics.
a) One way to do that is to make sure people with milder chest and similar infections or fevers drink a substantial amount of water and other drinks that contain water.
Doctors do routinely say to do that. But they usually do NOT make a sufficiently big deal of it and sell their patients on how useful and essential it is to do.
People who do this who have fevers may still be sick and feel bad; but they do NOT also become faint, weak, and dangerously debilitated. People who only drink if they notice they are thirsty all too often do have ALL those things happen.
Worse, they are far more likely to develop a secondary bacterial infection or have the one they have overwhelm their immune system enough to indicate or require antibiotic treatment.
b) Using relatively hot tea or green tea, relatively hot cocoa, and relatively hot chicken or vegetable broth with olive oil soup – or real fruit juice high in vitamin C are particularly good choices.
These have extra health and disease fighting effects and can be enjoyable enough to drink that drinking extra is easier and being sick is not quite so obnoxious.
c) Drink relatively hot chicken or vegetable broth with olive oil with chili or red pepper added or Cajun style spices with red pepper, paprika, and garlic powder.
This can make a so, so tasting broth taste really good. And, once the feeling of heat wears off, it can have a soothing effect on a sore or scratchy throat.
Having just had the occasion personally to drink some heated chicken broth for that purpose and using the Cajun spices just listed in it, I can testify to how much of a comforting effect that had. It tasted great. And I felt MUCH better for an hour or so after I drank each cup!
d) You can also eat Mexican or Chinese dishes that have a lot of these kinds of hot spices added more than once a day while you are sick with chest and similar infection.
You may have noticed that when you eat such foods anytime that you often will find that you begin to feel sweat on your forehead and your nose will get a bit runny.
That makes any of these hot foods and drinks a sound treatment to prevent added or worse bacterial infection because it thins your mucous enough for your body to get rid of it easily or more easily instead of remaining thick and inside you where the bacteria grow in it.
You may find you have to cough a bit extra or blow your nose a bit extra shortly afterwards from this effect. But you’ll feel more cleared out and feel and be less sick once you do.
3. You can do things that keep your immune system strong enough to prevent you from getting most such chest and related infections and to get rid of them more easily.
One of the easiest ways to do that & one that now looks to be one of the most powerful to do is to take an adequate amount of vitamin D3. We now know that this is between 2,000 and 5,000 iu a day, particularly in the winter months when colds, flu, and upper respiratory infections are most common.
In fact, taking that much D3 does so much for your immune system, they are now finding that doing this prevents many cancers and looks to prevent autoimmune diseases as well.
Since bottles of 1,000 iu capsules of D3 that contain 100 capsules cost less than $8 including tax almost everywhere in the United States, doing this is quite affordable.
4. We can also prevent avoidable chest and related bacterial infections with vaccines.
a) One common cause of secondary chest and related bacterial infections is to get the flu. But people who get the flu shot each fall, get the flu less often and often have a milder case when they do get it.
So, if most people who do not now do so, get the flu shot, we will need less antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections in people who didn’t get the shots.
b) Even more to the point, you can prevent between 70 & 90% of bacterial pneumonia be getting the pneumonia vaccine every 5 to 10 years. And, since that does need antibiotics to treat who people get it, having virtually everyone get the pneumonia vaccine will cut the antibiotic use we see.
It also slashes the risk of getting really sick or dying from bacterial pneumonia for the people who get it.
The more doctors who know to use and recommend these things and the more of use who do them, the less avoidable antibiotics will be used.
And, far less of us will get sick or very sick than do now.
Labels: avoid unnecessary antibiotics, how to keep antibiotics working, new test to see if antibiotics needed, overcome chest infections without antibiotics, pneumonia vaccine, prevent antibiotic resistance
posted by David at 2:07 PM
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