Why Antibiotics Don't Work on Colds

Viruses arent bacteria

We need a teensy biology lesson here, but Ill keep it brief.

You know how your body is made of cells?

Well, bacteria are free-living creatures that each haveonecell, and that cell is smaller than most of ours.

(Fun fact: They have DNA but no mitochondria.)

Some illnesses are resulting from bacteria.

Salmonella, gonorrhea, Lyme disease, and strep throat are all bacterial.

But then theres another, smaller pop in of germ.

These are the viruses.

Viruses are small enough that some of them can makebacteriasick.

By the way: Theres no simple way to remember which illnesses are bacterial and which are viral.

You just kind of have to remember (or look up) each one.

But most illnesses we call colds are viral.

What we call antibiotics are usually actuallyantibacterialdrugs.

Penicillin, amoxicillin, Z-Pak, Doxycyline, and Ciprofloxacin are all examples of common antibacterial medications.

(Obviously, if a drug interfered withourown bodily processes, it would harm us, too.

This is why chemotherapy for cancer is so brutal: Were poisoning our own human cells.)

So, for example, penicillin breaks down bacterial cell walls.

Tetracycline binds to ribosomesprotein-making enzymesbut only the form that certain bacteria use.

If you have a viral illness, these antibacterial medications wont do anything to the virus.

And, yes, sometimes it turns out you have a bacterial illness.

Antibiotics would be appropriate if your illness is bacterial.

But an awful lot of the time, a virus is just a virus.

Not only will antibiotics not help a viral illness, they have downsides.

One is that your bodys good bacteria, like gut flora, are affected by antibiotics.

If youve ever had diarrhea when taking an antibiotic, you know what I mean.

There are evenlife-threatening gastrointestinal infectionslikeC.

diffthat can result from antibiotic use.

Part of the reasonC.

diffis so hard to treat is that its antibiotic-resistant.

The same goes for MRSA, or methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus.

And finally, theres always the possibility of an adverse reaction to any drug.

So its best not to take antibiotics if you dont need them.