• Question: How does taking too many antibiotics affect the microbes living in your body?

    Asked by anon-231239 to Tom, Steven, Jessica, Haafizah, Clio, Bruno Silvester on 15 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Bruno Silvester Lopes

      Bruno Silvester Lopes answered on 15 Nov 2019:

      it can destroy good as well as bad bugs so its not a good idea to take antibiotics when you are not ill

    • Photo: Clio Andreae

      Clio Andreae answered on 15 Nov 2019:

      If you take too many antibiotics when you are ill you can kill off all the good bacteria in your body and make yourself more ill! Your gut microbiome is very important for a number of different reasons

    • Photo: Steven Rudder

      Steven Rudder answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Taking a lot of antibiotics kills good and bad bacteria. It also puts a lot of selective pressure on the bacteria. Only those with a strong tolerance survive. This can leads to an increase in bacteria that are very resistant to antibiotics.

    • Photo: Jessica Mitchell

      Jessica Mitchell answered on 21 Nov 2019:

      Antibiotics can kill good microbes as well as the bad ones and this is more likley the more antibiotics we take. Killing good microbes is a problem becasue we relay on some microbes to help us digest food.

      However antibiotics are very helpful for treating some infections and if your doctor prescribes you antibiotics you should take them according to the instrucitons.

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