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Life pro tip for friends of pharmacists (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 months ago by ickplant@lemmy.world to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[-] Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 6 months ago

Its because there might be a few bacteria left if you dont eat all the antibiotics

And those survivors might evolve and get resistant to antibiotics

Better to kill them all, leaving no survivors

[-] scrion@lemmy.world 21 points 6 months ago

Let's not forget to mention that these resistant bacteria start to spread, making antibiotics less and less useful over time, for everyone.

We're already at a place where antimicrobial resistance has become a huge issue, rendering treatments with antibiotics useless in many cases.

https://www.who.int/news/item/13-10-2025-who-warns-of-widespread-resistance-to-common-antibiotics-worldwide

If you ever suffered through a bacterial infection and remember how you felt once the antibiotics finally kicked in, and the prolonged suffering resistances would cause, or ever watched a loved one in a hospital die from a bacterial infection just because the were in a weakened state and the stem they caught was already resistant, you'll understand why that sucks so much as it does.

[-] The_v@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

That was the theory and how it works in a petri dish, however that's not how it works in the body.

Antibiotic treatment doesn't have to kill all of the bacteria. It needs to kill enough so the immune system can catch up and finish the job.

There been evidence for more than 50 years that overly long antibiotic treatments cause resistance to build up faster. That's why they have limits on the first place.

So there's a balance between too few days, and to many.

this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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