Natural health circles are known to discourage the use of many kinds of drugs as the number of side effects associated with pharmaceuticals typically outweighs the advantages of taking them.
On the other hand, the researchers and physicians who recommend drugs like this are unlikely to warn against taking drugs.
At least, that used to be the case.
Now, scientists and physicians are sounding the alarm on antibiotic use.
They’re saying if we don’t soon curtail the over-prescription of antibiotics we will invite an age of antibiotic resistance that will render us unable to cure infections.
Superbug Takeover Imminent?
Superbugs are not all that super.
They’re simply bacteria that have adapted to overcome the host of antibiotics used to prevent infection and survive in their presence.
And, this is a scary phenomenon as researchers believed we’ve reached the limit on how many new antibiotics we’re able to manufacture in the fight against bacteria.
This leads many to conclude we may soon reach an epoch for antibiotic use – one in which no antibiotics work to prevent infection.
The main problem with these new superbugs is how quickly they travel.
For instance, a team of researchers was recently examining thawed permafrost in the Arctic circle of Norway when they came across a type of superbug gene that had only been recently discovered in India.
Professor Jennifer Roberts of the University of Kansas was one of the researchers who discovered the presence of these genes. Her concern was the fact that these genes were found so far away and intact meant superbug migration could create a worldwide problem for medical treatments.
”We found both native and evolved antibiotic-resistant genes in the Arctic.
The concern is that with resistance spreading on this scale, we may be approaching a post-antibiotic era where none of our antibiotics work because the pathogens we’re trying to fight have picked up resistant genes via evolution or lateral transfer.”
Roberts theorized these superbugs could have reached the upper limits of the Arctic circle via bird-borne contamination or through the infection of small mammalian hosts.
The concern here is that even if these superbugs are quarantined in humans the rapid spread by smaller hosts could bring superbugs to any part of the world and set off a chain reaction of infection.
Roberts wrote in the conclusion of a paper on the subject:
“It’s really important for us to start thinking of water system management and antibiotics use in ways that are global — and to start reducing and controlling some of the spread that is clearly not controlled at the moment.”
