Natural Alternatives to Antibiotics: How you can Supercharge Your Immune System and Fight Infection

Resistance is gradually building to many of the major drugs in this group, in a number of important disease-causing microbes, including Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella, E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

THE MACROLIDE, GLYCOPEPTIDES AND LINCOSAMIDE DRUGS

In the early 1950s, drugs in the class of broad-spectrum antibiotics known as macrolides appeared. The most notable of these, and the only one still in major use, is erythromycin.

Erythromycin is used as an alternative to penicillin and cephalosporin drugs and has a particular usefulness in the treatment of Legionnaires’ disease (a rare form of pneumonia). It carries risks relating to liver damage and so is used cautiously.

The glycopeptide drugs include the toxic, expensive and hence very rarely used vancomycin. Its potency against superbugs such as S. aureus (see Chapter 2) makes this a drug held in reserve, and because of this resistance to it is low. Once again we see the irony of the savior drug being so toxic that it carries dangers all its own.

Among the side-effects of vancomycin are:

a bright red flushing (combined with severe itching) of all or part of the body (‘red-man’ reaction)

swelling of the mucous membranes

cardiovascular collapse (rare)

damage to the ears possibly leading to irreversible deafness

damage to the kidneys

serious blood diseases involving the white blood cells.

But remember – it could save your life at the same time.

The lincosamide drugs such as lincomycin appeared in the early 1960s, and are used mainly for treatment of extremely serious infections of bones, joints and the abdomen which fail to respond to other antibiotics. They too are therefore ‘kept in reserve’ because of their side-effects.

As the British Medical Association explains, ‘they are more likely to cause serious disruption of bacterial activity in the bowel than other antibiotics.’ This highlights the vital importance of maintaining the health of the friendly bacteria, and since all antibiotics damage these it is safe to assume that the lincosamide antibiotics are absolutely devastating.