How to write a nursing essay on the Effects of Antibiotics Use on Microbiome

How to write a nursing essay on the Effects of Antibiotics Use on Microbiome

Q5. Discuss how antibiotics can harm the body’s normal microbiome and examine how to replenish or increase the normal microbiome

Antibiotic use is essential in eradicating microorganisms in the human body. A healthy microbiome contains the resident microorganism that helps protect against invasion by opportunistic infections via colonization resistance. Microbiomes inhibit pathogens by producing anti-microbial compounds and outcompete pathogens for space in the gut. Microbiome activates the immune system to respond to pathogens (Ferrer et al., 2017). Finally, the microbiome maintains the mucus layers so pathogens can easily invade intestinal cells. The reduction of the resident gut flora by antibiotic consumption provides an opportunity for pathogenic bacteria to colonize the intestinal wall.

Antibiotics come in different for example, broad-spectrum antibiotics and narrow-spectrum antibiotics. Broad-spectrum antibiotics are most commonly prescribed because the microorganism causing an infectious disease might be unknown. The use of broad-spectrum antibiotics has been observed to have several impacts on the microbiome on gut health. Continuous use of antibiotics affects the microbiota by reducing microbial diversity in the gut. Broad spectrum antibiotics clear out the Bifidobacterium, which serves as protective species for the gut (Schwartz et al., 2020). Destruction of the microbiota by continued use of broad-spectrum antibiotics promotes the colonization of opportunistic pathogens, for instance, clostridium difficile, that can cause antibiotic-associated diarrhoea.

Although the microbiome is destroyed by antibiotics use, the microbiome can be replenished. An excellent strategy to improve the gut flora entails ensuring the gut microbiome is fed with foods that will attract the beneficial residents’ microbiota to grow back. Probiotic food or supplements contain live microorganisms, commonly lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, which constitute the microbiota. The use of probiotics foods stimulate the microplate to return healthy after the disturbance of antibiotics. High fibre foods support beneficial microbe’s human gut. Eating a high-fibre diet helps replenish and foster a healthy microbiome’s growth.   Finally, fermented foods like yoghurt, cheese and cider contain live beneficial bacteria that significantly help restore a healthy gut after antibiotic use side effects.

 

References

Ferrer, M., Méndez-García, C., Rojo, D., Barbas, C., & Moya, A. (2017). Antibiotic use and microbiome function. Biochemical pharmacology134, 114-126.

Schwartz, D. J., Langdon, A. E., & Dantas, G. (2020). Understanding the impact of antibiotic perturbation on the human microbiome. Genome medicine12(1), 1-12.

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