The appearance of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections such as staphylococcal, streptococci, bacilli and pneumonia seemed to arrive as a miracle panacea in the 1950s. Alexander Fleming (1981-1955) – who discovered penicillin, the first broadly effective antibiotic – predicted the rise of superbugs, stating: “No prophylactic antibiotics!” Which to us means, “no ‘just-in-case’ antibiotics!” He believed they should only be used for life-threatening infections, or persistent ones that just wouldn’t go away by themselves. He would likely be ashamed of our cavalier approach to prescribing them, let alone injecting them into livestock, both of which have created drug-resistant strains that are more difficult to treat.
Antibiotics don’t just kill germs either; they are toxic to all cells. “Anti” means against – and “bio” means life. Antibiotics kill the good bacteria which are meant to fight illness and are essential to digestion. This is accepted science, even in the mainstream now. Intestinal diseases like colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease were relatively rare before the widespread use of antibiotics. It’s possible that too many bouts of drugs, along with the excessive spraying of our produce with herbicides and insecticides, have contributed to the destruction the microbiome, which is the collection of helpful bacteria that live on the inside of the human body.
Our body is basically a farm for bacteria. They make up around half of the cells in our body. The good bacteria that antibiotics kill are essential to the function of the body, and they should therefore only be taken when absolutely necessary. What you want are probiotics. You want to go with the healing process, enhance it, and support the body’s natural capacity to overcome disease. You may have to do some research and get a good product when it comes to probiotics, because when independent testing is done on many of the commercial brands, they find that most of the “good bacteria” in them are already dead!
