It’s better to know, so you can make more informed decisions on what you take
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Deadly side effects from this kind of antibiotic
Antibiotics are pretty awesome!
That’s probably not how you expected me to start this article…
But even with the risk that some antibiotics pose, they have revolutionized modern healthcare.
Before antibiotics, people would die of all sorts of seriously nasty infections.
Even a minor cut could kill you if you ended up with a blood infection or sepsis because of it.
However, even though antibiotics are fantastic, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t without risk.
The category of antibiotics that is the riskiest is called fluoroquinolone antibiotics.
The most frequently prescribed are ciprofloxacin (Cipro), levofloxacin (Levaquin) and moxifloxacin (Avelox).
These antibiotics have their place and are sometimes necessary…
…but if I was prescribed one of these, I would consult with my doctor to see if there was a better and less risky alternative.
These types of antibiotics have been associated with an increased risk of aortic aneurysm and dissection.
An increased risk of AA/AD was observed for prolonged exposure to fluoroquinolones (OR: 2.41 for 3- to 14-day exposure; OR: 2.83 for >14-day exposure). Susceptible period analysis revealed that the use of fluoroquinolone within 60 days was associated with the highest risk of AA/AD.
Aortic dissection is just as bad as it sounds and it can be deadly.
An aortic dissection is a serious condition in which a tear occurs in the inner layer of the body’s main artery (aorta). Blood rushes through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to split (dissect). If the blood goes through the outside aortic wall, aortic dissection is often deadly.
In another study, researchers found that ciprofloxacin creates inflammation in smooth heart muscle cells.
This was a mice study, but since mice are often good models for humans, I think it’s something to take seriously.
In the microphysiological model, real-time PCR, Western blotting, and RNA sequencing showed that ciprofloxacin exposure was associated with a downregulated contractile phenotype, an upregulated inflammatory reaction, and extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation in the normal HASMCs derived from the nondiseased aorta. Ciprofloxacin induced mitochondrial dysfunction in the HASMCs and further increased apoptosis by activating the ERK1/2 and P38 mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways.
Anytime you get inflammation in your heart it’s a bad thing and can cause damage to your heart muscle.
In addition to these potentially negative physical effects, quinolone antibiotics can have major mental side effects as well.
They’ve been linked to an increased risk in suicidal behaviors.
We found a strong safety signal suggesting an increased risk of suicidal behaviors associated with quinolone use. Plausible psychopharmacological mechanisms could underlie this association. Further investigations are urgent to confirm and better understand these findings.
The use of antibiotics has revolutionized medicine by treating bacterial infections that were once deadly.
However, some antibiotics, specifically fluoroquinolone antibiotics like ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, and moxifloxacin…
…have been associated with an increased risk of aortic aneurysm and dissection, as well as inflammation in smooth heart muscle cells.
These antibiotics have also been linked to an increased risk of suicidal behaviors.
Antibiotics are great.
But you need to be aware of potential side effects of what you are taking so you can decide if the benefit is worth the risk.
—-Important Message About Boosting Immunity—-
Remember: the only way to recover from most viral illness is with your own body’s natural defenses…
And when your immune system is functioning properly, you will be making the all-powerful T cells which exist to identify and kill invading pathogens or infected cells.
These T cells are even more important than antibodies.
T cells can hang around in the blood for years after an infection and become part of your immune system’s “long term memory.”
This means your immune system works smarter and faster when encountering similar viruses and illnesses.
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