I often hear the concern of medical professionals about antibiotic resistance. Various organizations like the WHO are also whining about it, calling for limiting the use of antibiotics. But are they right and can this process be stopped through such restrictions? This is a question I have been asking for a long time, so here are my thoughts on it:
Consider an isolated system - a Petri dish 🧫, inside the medium and a bacterial culture, e.g. Escherichia coli 🦠. If there is "food" in the medium these bacteria multiply until they encounter physical volume limitations, when such "boundaries" are sensed the multiplication stops until a niche is available for new bacteria.
Well, they live their lives and do not face any threats. There is no resistance of the medium (except for the walls of the cup). Then we do "genocide" by adding an antibiotic to the medium (provided that the bacteria are sensitive to it).
The antibiotic may kill the culture completely, but it is more likely that there will be some minimal number of surviving bacteria. They will cope with the concentration of the antibiotic, stop dividing for a while, and then start dividing again. And then what Darwin described back in the 19th century happens - new generations of bacteria after antibiotic will be resistant to this antibiotic.
The proverb "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger" describes this process perfectly 🙂
Moreover, besides antibiotic, any other threats to bacterial population lead to similar adaptation. For example, if you put bacteriophages (these are viruses that parasitize bacteria) in a cup, it will be exactly the same - part of the population will die, but the descendants of those who survived will be immune to these bacteriophages.
This adaptation is the principle of evolution of all living things. Which, for example, was in the Black Queen hypothesis:
“Виду необходимы постоянное изменение и адаптация, чтобы существовать в окружающем мире, постоянно эволюционирующем вместе с ним”
What's my point? The point is that we can't do away with antibiotics completely, nor can we make an antibiotic that kills 100% of the infection population. That is, adaptation of the infection to the threat is inevitable, regardless of the type of threat. It's a matter of time.
For example, antibiotic resistant strains always occur in hospitals where antibiotics are used every day, perhaps every hour 😷
This practice leads to constant "training" of the infection, i.e. the bacteria mutate so that in their next generation the threat (antibiotic) is up to the task. Now a rhetorical question, what hospital can refuse the practice of antibiotics? If they do, people will die.
What conclusion can be drawn?
Antibiotic resistance is an inevitable process with the traditional treatment approach.
For some reason, medics and other smart people (from the same WHO) forget or don't understand these fundamental things.
I will now describe the approach that should be introduced into medical practice so that antibiotic resistance does NOT create problems. This approach stems from what is described above - human beings are organisms that can adapt to threats 💪 Any infection is a threat. And in this "battle", the first to adapt wins.
Let me give you a simple example: There is a hospital where a strain of tubercle bacillus resistant to all antibiotics has been found. We take this strain, go out on the street and give it to 100 people. Do you think they will all get sick and die, or not?
Of course not, some will get sick and some won't even blink an eye 🙂Why does this happen?
Some of these people have well-tuned immunity (adapted, have resources) andsomedon't. You will say that this is logical, but then why is there NO ONE checking this immunity upon admission to the hospital? 🙂
After all, knowing that the immune system is not ready for infection, it can be influenced in advance and eliminate the risk of death from an antibiotic-resistant strain.
Again, in modern medicine available to mere mortals, no one does this! However, they continue to whine that the overuse of antibiotics is to blame.
This approach is fundamentally stupid, it's like saying that drunkenness is only due to the fact that vodka is freely sold in stores, let's ban the sale of vodka and drunkenness will end 😁
Who is interested in this topic, in the video below, a description of an evolutionary experiment on E. coli, which clearly shows all that I have described, and even more: The experience showed that mutations of E. coli occur during the change of generation, even without the threat of antibiotic type, T..I.e. antibiotic resistance can arise randomly by changing some genes in new generations!
