Suesa's Science Challenge #2: Coughing and antibiotics, is it a good treatment? /咳嗽和抗生素，這是一個很好的治療方法嗎？

For Chinese version, please scroll down/ 中文版請見文末

Here is my entry for @suesa ‘s #sciencechallenge post, as part of the SteemSTEM management team, I will forfeit my chance of winning in the competition. My job here is to correct the misconceptions!!

Coughing is one of the symptoms that alert you when you are sick, and acute bronchitis is usually the most common cause for your coughing. Acute bronchitis is the inflammation of your bronchi, and over 90% of the acute bronchitis is of virus origin. Additional risk factors also include smoking, and air pollutions, in general, anything that can irritate your bronchi. Acute bronchitis are usually self limited infections with symptoms lasting roughly for 3 weeks

Antibiotics are chemicals that kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria, which usually involve the mechanisms such as bacterial cell wall production inhibition, and bacterial protein synthesis inhibition. All of which act upon bacterial physiological important pathways.

Virus are not bacteria, they are different “organisms”. Bacteria are self sustainable organisms, they can growth and reproduce by themselves, while virus are infectious agents that can only sustain inside a living cell (host). Bacteria and virus hardly share any common physiological pathways. This means Antibiotics are not effective in eliminating viral infections. Further indicating over 90% of the acute bronchitis does not require antibiotics are a form of treatment. Making your antibiotic “treatment” course unpractical and potentially promote the development of antibiotic resistant superbugs.

What should you really do?

Prevention of any disease is always the best option, quit smoking and avoid contacting environmental irritants in the air by wearing masks are good preventive measures. Furthermore, frequent hand washing can reduce the contact of microorganisms, including virus and bacteria. Having proper vaccines will also benefit yourself in case of disease prevention. Understand that having acute bronchitis likely means your coughs will persist for 3 weeks, being mentally prepared for a “long” sick time can reduce your psychological stress of thinking you are not getting any better. But most of all, visit a doctor for consultation is the most important thing you should do, as only medical experts could diagnose the cause of your disease and the corresponding treatment. Despite the 90% chance of acute bronchitis as viral origin, there are still slight chances of bacterial infection, which antibiotics treatments will be essential.

Photo source: Pixabay.com
Reference:

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2010/1201/p1345.pdf

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2012/1101/p817.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchitis

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1872806

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-respiratory-infection-course/some-respiratory-infections-may-not-need-antibiotics-idUSKBN13B2MV

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/21/health/antibiotics-virus-bacteria/index.html

咳嗽和抗生素，這是一個很好的治療方法嗎？

這是我參加 @suesa 的 #sciencechallenge 貼 的條目，作為SteemSTEM管理團隊的一部分，我將放棄我在比賽中獲勝的機會。我的工作是為大家糾正誤解！

咳嗽是您生病時提醒您的症狀之一，急性支氣管炎通常是您咳嗽的最常見原因。急性支氣管炎是支氣管的發炎，超過90％的急性支氣管炎是由病毒來源引起的。額外的風險因素還包括吸煙和空氣污染，一般來說，任何可能會刺激您的支氣管。急性支氣管炎通常是自限性感染，症狀持續大概3週

抗生素是殺死或抑制細菌生長的化學物質，其通常涉及細菌細胞壁產生抑制和細菌蛋白質合成抑制等機制。所有這些都是細菌生理學上重要的途徑。

病毒不是細菌，它們是不同的“生物”。細菌是自我維持的生物，它們可以自己生長和自我繁殖，而病毒是只能在活細胞（宿主）內維持的感染因子。細菌和病毒幾乎不會共享任何常見的生理途徑。這意味著抗生素在消除病毒感染方面無效。進一步說明超過90％的急性支氣管炎其實不需要抗生素就是一種治療方式。使您的抗生素“治療”課程不切實際，並可能促進抗生素抗性超級細菌的發展。

你應該怎麼做？

防止任何疾病始終是最好的選擇，戒菸和避免通過戴口罩在空氣中接觸環境刺激物是良好的預防措施。此外，頻繁洗手可以減少包括病毒和細菌在內的微生物的接觸。在預防疾病的情況下，使用適當的疫苗也將有利於您。了解急性支氣管炎可能意味著您的咳嗽將持續3週，精神上為“長時間”病假做好準備，可以降低您心理壓力，認為您沒有得到任何改善。但最重要的是拜訪醫生諮詢是您應該做的最重要的事情，因為只有醫學專家可以診斷您的疾病的原因和相應的治療方法。儘管急性支氣管炎的機率為90％，但仍有輕微的細菌感染機會，抗生素治療那時候才重要。

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