Antibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed medications in both outpatient and hospital settings. Global efforts at curbing antibiotic-resistant strains have prompted clinicians to pursue better stewardship, whereby they limit their prescribing of such medications to those who truly need them.
Yet there's another possible means of addressing antibiotic resistance — using dietary interventions to reduce the gastrointestinal (GI) complaints that so often accompany the use of antibiotics: vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, bloating/indigestion, abdominal pain, and loss of appetite. Far from being a mere nuisance, these complications can have major ramifications.
"Often [these side effects] will result in people stopping an antibiotic they need or taking a second- or third-generation one, which potentially causes even more problems with resistance," explained Daniel J. Merenstein, MD, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University, who has conducted multiple trials on antibiotic stewardship and probiotics.
And it's not just clinicians who would like to find a way around these common complaints. On lifestyle blogs such as Livestrong and Goop, medical news websites, and via academic institutionspatients can learn how the right probiotic supplement or certain fermented or high-fiber foods, for example, might spare them the upset stomach that often accompanies a course of antibiotics.
