Some Tips About Antibiotics

Antibiotics are wonderful when necessary, but quite often, people abuse antibiotics through overuse or  do not take the full course of the prescription.  This leads to future low resistance to superbugs.  Protect yourself from the superbug invasion by following these simple steps:

Here's Your Healthy Tip of the Day:  Protect yourself from the superbug invasion by doing the following:  don't take antibiotics unless you really need them.  Antibiotics are not a prevention method - they are results-based.  If you are given antibiotics, complete the prescription course.  Only by taking the full amount of antibiotics, will your body be able to kill whatever that nasty bug is that's living in your body.  Only purchase meat that is not raised with antibiotics.  WASH YOUR HANDS, WASH YOUR HANDS, WASH YOUR HANDS.  One pet peeve I have is when I am in a restaurant having my dinner and approached by people who want to shake my hand.  If this happens to you, you have two choices:  shake their hand and go wash your own hands before continuing your meal, or just tell the person your hands are clean, you are eating your dinner.  When preparing your own meals, cook your meat thoroughly and wash all utensils and cooking/prep surfaces with hot water and soap.

U.S. Meat Farmers Brace for Limits on Antibiotics

My friend and colleague, the Spice Doc, in Chicago posted a NY Times article on the use of antibiotics on poultry and livestock here in the United States.  With all the news about E-Coli and other types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria out there these days, I thought this was a very provocative, informative and fabulous article.  Here's an excerpt, but I suggest you read the entire piece online! Thanks so much, Nicole The Spice Doc!
Dispensing antibiotics to healthy animals is routine on the large, concentrated farms that now dominate American agriculture. But the practice is increasingly condemned by medical experts who say it contributes to a growing scourge of modern medicine: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including dangerous E. coli strains that account for millions of bladder infections each year, as well as resistant types of salmonella and other microbes.

Now, after decades of debate, the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to issue its strongest guidelines on animal antibiotics yet, intended to reduce what it calls a clear risk to human health. They would end farm uses of the drugs simply to promote faster animal growth and call for tighter oversight by veterinarians...
Here's Your Healthy Tip of the Day:  Read the entire article by clicking on this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/us/15farm.html?_r=1&ref=dining