Should You Take Probiotic Supplements While Taking Antibiotics?
March 19,2019
Antibiotics are an important class of drugs that are prescribed by healthcare providers to treat harmful bacterial infections in the body. However, they have not been proven useful for treating illnesses like the common cold or flu, which are viral infections. Moreover, current research suggests that antibiotics may have been over-prescribed in recent years as a preventative medication to reduce the risk of secondary infections. Since antibiotics kill all kinds of bacteria, including helpful gut bacteria, side effects of antibiotic use often include stomach upset, diarrhea, or thrush.
Probiotics are often called "the good" bacteria because, along with yeasts, they help keep your gut healthy. Probiotics help food pass through your digestive system by affecting the nerves that cause gut movement. Researchers are still actively trying to figure out how probiotics work but doctors often suggest taking probiotics to help with antibiotic-related diarrhea, such as clostridium difficile infection (C.DIFF) commonly associated with taking fluoroquinolones, such as ciprofloxacin or Cipro.
Tips for Taking Antibiotics
Anytime you are prescribed an antibiotic, you should take the meds exactly as prescribed. You are sick, so don't be too anxious to restore absolute balance to your system. Listed below are few helpful tips for taking antibiotic drugs:
- Avoid Alcohol - Alcohol can disrupt gut microbiome and negatively affect your body's efforts to fight infection.
- Avoid Sugary Foods - Foods with added sugars as well as overly processed foods may feed bad bacteria and fuel the overgrowth of yeasts.
- Take All Prescribed Antibiotics - Always follow your doctor's advice and never finish a course of antibiotics early.
- Eat Prebiotic Foods - Prebiotic foods are a type of fiber that the human body cannot digest that feed probiotics, such as chicory root, Jerusalem artichoke, garlic or asparagus.
- Eat Fermented Foods - Eating probiotic rich foods like kombucha, yogurt, kimchi, kefir or sauerkraut can prevent negative side effects of antibiotics.
- Don't Rely Solely on Antibiotics - Eat healthy and add immune-boosting foods containing Vitamin C and other antioxidants. Also, get plenty of sleep when fighting an infection.
Antibiotics can cause negative shifts (dysbiosis) in your gut bacteria, digestive upset, or even painful infections like C.DIFF. Should you experience intestinal discomfort discuss this with your doctor rather than launch a trial and error campaign to balance your gut microbiota.
New Research on Side Effects of Taking Probiotics
Recently, the prestigious medical journal Cell published a couple of groundbreaking studies on the safety and utility of probiotic supplementation to restore bacterial balance in the gut. Ironically, for some people, taking probiotics after antibiotics prevented their gut from returning to normal and extended gut dysbiosis for up to five months after stopping medication. On the other hand, natural restoration of gut microbiome relying on food intake typically occurred within three weeks of ending medications.
Probiotics are not a proven replacement for a nutrient-dense diet, and diet is still the primary determinant of microbiota composition. In fact, the benefits of taking probiotics, during or immediately after antibiotics in most cases, do not appear to outweigh the long-term delay in restoring gut microbiota. Nonetheless, it is unlikely there will ever be a definitive answer as every "body" is different and numerous variables must be considered in directing the best course of medical actions for a given individual.
It is probably safe to say that taking your antibiotics exactly as directed and allowing your gut to recover on its own by supporting it with a nutrient-dense diet is the best course of action for most patients. To discuss your specific medical needs with a board-certified physician, contact PrimeMED to schedule an appointment at our Orange Park, St. Augustine or Jacksonville office.
