What you need to know about antibiotic-associated diarrhea

Diarrhea is one of the common side effects of antibiotics, which can lead to intestinal pathology .

Antibiotic abuse and its consequences

The use of antibiotics is like a double-edged sword. In addition to the effectiveness of treatment to kill pathogenic bacteria, antibiotics also cause many side effects, the most common is a disturbance of the intestinal microflora, which is manifested through digestive disorders such as abdominal pain, nausea, and diarrhea. . In which, antibiotic-associated diarrhea is an acute form of diarrhea that can occur in 5-30% of patients, with the incidence increasing as the antibiotic spectrum is increasingly broad.

Children are more prone to diarrhea when taking antibiotics than adults, because their digestive systems are not fully developed. According to statistics, in Vietnam, one out of every five children using antibiotics has diarrhea (rate of 20%).

Indiscriminate use of antibiotics can have serious consequences. (Image: Shutterstock).

There are multiple mechanisms of antibiotic diarrhea. A few antibiotics cause increased intestinal motility, causing fluid and undigested food to be quickly pushed from the intestine to the anus, not through the process of absorption into the body, causing diarrhea, usually mild. Meanwhile, most antibiotics will affect bacteria that cause disturbances in the intestinal microflora, causing diarrhea. Some types include both of these mechanisms, especially the group of amoxicillin combined with clavulanic acid, causing more severe diarrhea than others.

The gut microbiome is also closely related to the body's immune system , helping to maintain a barrier against disease risks. Therefore, when the intestinal microflora is disturbed by the use of antibiotics, the body's resistance also decreases. This is why when antibiotics are used too much, the body is more susceptible to infections.

The arbitrary use of antibiotics also causes many other side effects on the body such as allergies, liver and kidney toxicity, anaphylaxis, which can be life-threatening. In the long term, overuse will lead to resistance to antibiotics, which limits the effectiveness of treatment, reduces the effectiveness of the drug in killing bacteria, worsens the disease, and can lead to death.

Most antibiotics can cause diarrhea, but some are more likely to cause diarrhea than others such as cephalosporins, clindamycin, and penicillin.

How do antibiotics affect the gut microbiota?

The human gut microbiota, in addition to beneficial and harmful bacteria, also contains viruses, fungi, and parasites that live naturally in the body.

Normally, the microorganisms in the intestinal tract will exist in a certain balance ratio. When affected by factors such as antibiotic use, dietary changes or disease, the existing balance will be changed in number, reducing the diversity of bacterial species, leading to a disorder of the intestinal microflora (also known as dysbiosis in English). Some studies have shown that the disturbance in the gut microbiota caused by antibiotics can persist, detectable up to 6 months after stopping antibiotics.

Not only expressed through diarrhea, intestinal microflora disorders caused by antibiotics also cause many long-term diseases. (Image: Shutterstock)

The long-term and abusive use of antibiotics will make the microbiota in the intestines not recover in time, leading to a chronic disorder that is difficult to recover. This can contribute to the development of intestinal diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or systemic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic disease. Alzheimer's neurodegenerative disease. Children may experience asthma, allergies, immune diseases. These diseases are often lifelong pursuits with high treatment costs, severely affecting the patient's quality of life.

Vietnam is in the group of countries with the highest rate of antibiotic resistance. (Photo: Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences).

The World Health Organization (WHO) put Vietnam in the group of countries with the highest rate of antibiotic resistance in the world. The 2015 Antibiotic Use Map of IMS Health also shows that Vietnam belongs to the group of countries that use a lot of antibiotics.

While many developed countries still use 1st generation antibiotics effectively, Vietnam has to use 3rd and 4th generation antibiotics. More worryingly, our country has appeared some super bacteria resistant to all antibiotics . The most common group of intestinal gram-negative bacteria.