The discovery of antibiotics was the greatest medical success in 20th century. However, the 21st century will be the end of the antibiotic era. In the healthy body, there are good and bad bacteria. The good bacteria can balance the bad bacteria to keep us healthy. Antibiotics kill both good and bad ones, and leave antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive. This will produce a horrible result: the current medicines become ineffective. People will die from infections that were once easily treated.
Experts have warned against the overuse of antibiotics because of the possibility that bacteria would develop resistance to the drugs. Now, their fears have come to pass. Today, about 2 Americans die per hour from infections of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In fact, if you use antibiotics too often, you can end up with a rebound effect, because antibiotics suppress the immune system, and make you more susceptible to new infections.
For example, a urinary tract infection, it is routinely treated by prescribed an antibiotic, but symptoms returned very soon. You get stronger medicine next time. After many years of using different antibiotics, all good bacteria are dead; only antibiotic-resistant bacteria are surviving in the body. Therefore, no medicine can treat you for next infection.
We should rethink about chemical medicine in the 21st century. We abused chemical medicines in the 20th century and suffered a big deal from that. Herbal medicines are friendly to the body systems, and they can kill bad bacteria without destroying the whole bacteria ecosystem inside the body. In fact, a Chinese herbal formula can treat a urinary tract infection with 7 times less recurrent bouts.
Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, had asked us: “to leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal with food,” thousand years ago. Life is always going back to the basics. Herbal medicines should be studied and used scientifically in the 21st century. Use herbal medicines as the first choice, and keep chemical medicines as the last resort.
