Probiotics: Which Ones Are Right For You?

Almost everyone has heard of probiotics. They truly are big news, what with companies advertising constantly about the benefits that they can have for you ‘gut’. It seems that these companies will suggest that probiotics are good for almost every condition in the world – and while it may be true that some can make a difference to your overall healthiness, the kind of constant advertising that is thrown at us can make it very difficult to establish which probiotics might be best for us.

 

Let’s face it – some probiotics are going to be better than others. That’s just the way everything works in life and there’s no reason to think it should be any different with probiotics. Probiotics are not all the same and some can help you in different ways than others, so it’s important to focus on what it is that you want to get out of taking the probiotics rather than just blindly using them in the hope that it will improve your health and wellbeing. It’s this kind of action that can lead to you spending a lot of money on these supposed treatments only to be disheartened and upset when they don’t work and appear to have wasted all your time, effort and cash.

 

Some probiotics are purported to have the ability to boost your immune system, sooth your itching skin and even get rid of an upset stomach. So which ones should you take if you want to do this? There are many stories that you hear of people being worried when they are on antibiotics, because they aren’t getting better or appear to have worsening symptoms. In one case, a woman was prescribed stronger and stronger antibiotics only to encounter more problems that she had to begin with – in trying to fight off her intestinal infection, it appeared the antibiotics had made it worse.

 

However, when she took an over the counter probiotic called Florastor, it was reported to help her return to normal very quickly. Indeed soon she found that she was able to eat normally again and all was well. It’s important to remember, of course, that this is only likely to be true in a very tiny minority of cases and in the vast majority of situations antibiotics are what you need if you are to overcome illnesses. In fact, it’s well known that the large amounts of money that corporations plug into probiotics (most of which do literally nothing at all and cannot possibly benefit your health) would be much better spent researching antibiotics that can heal people.

 

Unfortunately, as antibiotics cannot be sold in the way that probiotics can – in a commercial form – they are not remotely near as profitable, as gullible people will continue to buy probiotics under the misapprehension that it will benefit their health when really there is very little it can do. Rather than thinking that probiotics might be able to help because of packages that said things like ‘active cultures’ or ‘good bacteria’ which essentially is saying nothing but sounding like it might be positive, it’s a much better idea to promote the understanding of rational scientific thought.

 

The reason probiotics can be sold by any company in a supermarket is because their supposed health enhancements and abilities to change your body cannot be proven by science. This suggests that actually, if you want to know which probiotic is right for you, there is a simple answer – none of them. Probiotics are a terrible waste of money and must be ignored by the rational thinking person.

Categories: antibiotics, florastor, health, nbsp, people, probiotics

Could Antibiotics Increase Your Child’s Risk of Eczema?

Antibiotics are often vital to family wellness, but they may be putting your child’s wellbeing at risk of eczema. This is according to a new study, published in the British Journal of Dermatology, which found that the use of antibiotics in the first 12 months of life may increase your child’s chance of developing eczema by up to 40%. Moreover, your child’s eczema risk increases by 7% with each additional course of antibiotics.

 

For the study – which was carried out by researchers from the University of Nottingham, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary – the researchers examined data from 20 existing studies. All of this previous research had investigated the association between prenatal and early exposure to antibiotics, and the subsequent development of eczema. The results of the study revealed that children with eczema had often been treated with antibiotics in the first year of life, but not while still in the womb.

 

One of the study’s authors, Dr Teresa Tsakok of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, commented, ‘One potential explanation is that broad-spectrum antibiotics alter the gut microflora and that this in turn affects the maturing immune system in a way that promotes allergic disease development.’ Senior author, Dr Carsten Flohr of King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’, noted, ‘A better understanding of the complex relationship between antibiotic use and allergic disease is a priority for clinicians and health policymakers alike, as determination of a true link between antibiotic use and eczema would have far-reaching clinical and public health implications.’

 

According to Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, ‘Eczema is our most common skin disease, affecting one in every five children in the UK at some stage and causing a significant burden to the patient and the health service. Allergic diseases including eczema have increased over past decades, particularly for children in high income countries, but the causes for this are not fully understood. The evidence is not conclusive and the researchers are not suggesting that parents should withhold antibiotics from children when doctors feel such treatment is necessary, but studies like this give an insight into possible avoidable causes and may help to guide medical practice.’

Categories: antibiotics, Eczema, Research

Antibiotics Failing to Treat Gonorrhoea as Cases Rise

Antibiotics have been leading the fight against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) since the 1940s. But now the infections are fighting back – in England and Wales in 2011, cases of gonorrhoea rose by a quarter as strains of the disease showed resistance to the drug treatment.

Health chiefs have now launched a new campaign known as the Gonorrhoea Resistance Action Plan to deal with the problem, which is fast becoming a major issue worldwide. The Action Plan has been developed by the Gonococcal Resistant to Antimicrobials Surveillance Programme (GRASP) to examine how gonorrhoea has become increasingly resistant to the antibiotics currently used to treat the disease.

Gonorrhoea is the second most common bacterial STI in England and in 2011, new cases rose by 25% in one year to almost 21,000. More than a third of new diagnoses involved men who have sex with men with a third reported to be repeat infections.

The idea behind the Action Plan is to raise awareness of the threat of gonorrhoea and to inform those who take part in risky sexual activity that antibiotics can no longer treat the disease simply and effectively. The Action Plan will be used to collect essential data on gonorrhoea diagnoses and treatment failures to inform and guide clinicians in dealing with the rising threat of antibiotic resistance. More will also be done to promote the safe sex message, particularly through the use of condoms in penetrative sex.

Drugs such as ceftriaxone and azithromycin are commonly used to treat gonorrhoea but an increasing number of cases have proven to be resistant to the drugs in England and around the world. Infection resistance is now considered one of the major health issues facing the medical profession.

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Antibiotics Failing to Treat Gonorrhoea as Cases Rise

Categories: antibiotics, Gonorrhoea, Resistance

Warning: Untreatable Gonorrhea On The Rise

There is some really bad news for those who do not take care of their sexual health: the antibiotics have stopped working. For those who have unprotected sex with no thought for their wellbeing or sexual wellness, the risk of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) is a very real one.

In the past, whilst some STIs are more serious than others, most were curable. Now, the last antibiotic which has proved effective for gonorrhea has started failing to work. Researchers have released information that during a study, the oral antibiotic failed to cure seven percent of all patients treated for gonorrhea at a specific clinic.

Worryingly, this seems to show a treatment-resistant strain of gonorrhea that is emerging. This has raised alarm amongst doctors in the U.S. They have now been ordered by health officials to stop prescribing an antibiotic called cefixime as the recent lab cultures have shown that gonorrhea is starting to develop a resistance to the treatment.

This has left U.S. doctors with only one single treatment option for cases of gonorrhea, and that is to inject an antibiotic called ceftriaxone to fight the disease.

Some doctors feel that it is only a matter of time until full antibiotic resistance occurs in cases of gonorrhea, and the disease becomes untreatable using antibiotics. There is no other known treatment for gonorrhea to date.

At the moment, even when the disease does not resist the antibiotic, it has been shown that increasing levels of the antibiotic are needed in order to fight the disease. The study into this looked at those who attended the clinic suffering from the disease, and then identified return rate of those who were still suffering from the disease.

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Warning: Untreatable Gonorrhea On The Rise

Categories: antibiotics, gonorrhea, untreatable

Call for New Drugs to be Developed to Treat Gonorrhoea

Antibiotics have been at the forefront of the battle against gonorrhoea for decades. But evidence is emerging that the sexually transmitted infection (STI) is growing resistant to the last class of antibiotics that can treat gonorrhoea.

The news is a worrying development for the medical profession worldwide – the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests that more than 100 million people are infected with gonorrhoea every single year, making it the second most common STI.

So far, the UK, France, Australia, Japan, Sweden and Norway have reported cases where gonorrhoea has proved resistant to antibiotic treatment.

The WHO is now calling for more research into alternative therapies for gonorrhoea. And through its Global Action Plan, the health agency also wants better preventative measures, quicker diagnosis and better control of gonorrhoea infections.

Gonorrhoea was once known as “the clap” and is an STI caused by the neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria. It is passed through unprotected sex and a pregnant woman can also pass the infection on to her unborn child.

Typical symptoms of gonorrhoea include an unusual discharge from the penis or vagina, pain when urinating, and bleeding between periods for women. Some people who have the infection don’t have any symptoms.

The earlier the infection is diagnosed and the quicker treatment begins, the more effective antibiotics can be in eradicating it. Left untreated, gonorrhoea can cause serious long-term health problems, such as pelvic inflammatory disease or infertility, eye infections in newborns and an increased risk of HIV infection.

Antibiotics have been used to treat gonorrhoea since the 1940s but over the decades, the infection has developed resistance to the likes of penicillin and tetracyclines. The latest developments from around the world have now revealed that gonorrhoea is proving resistant to cephalosporins, the last line in drug defence against it.

The spread of gonorrhoea can be prevented by practising safe sex – always use a condom.

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Call for New Drugs to be Developed to Treat Gonorrhoea

Categories: antibiotics, Gonorrhoea, resistant