Hepatic Metabolism: Alcohol And Antibiotics
Have you ever heard that you should not drink alcohol when taking medication? You should be even more careful if you mix antibiotics with alcohol. The reason why mixing alcohol with antibiotics is harmful to health is related to liver metabolism. However, it is important to clarify a few concepts in order to be able to explain this process.
What is an antibiotic?
Antibiotics have helped save millions of lives since the first use of penicillin.
An antibiotic is a chemical produced by a living or synthetically created creature that kills or stops the development of certain types of sensitive microorganisms. Antibiotics are drugs used to treat bacterial infections and, for this reason, are also known as antibacterials.
Antibiotics help the immune system until the local response is strong enough to control the infection. An antibiotic is bacteriostatic if it stops the growth of bacteria and bactericidal if it kills them. Sometimes it can cause both effects, depending on the case.
What is alcohol?
Alcohol is a substance that depresses the central nervous system and progressively inhibits brain functions. This causes symptoms of intoxication that affect brain activity, coordination and behavior.
Frequent and excessive alcohol consumption causes inflammation and destruction of liver cells. This results in liver cirrhosis.
What does the liver do? Liver metabolism
The liver is one of the most important organs in the body. This is primarily due to the large number of important functions it performs throughout the day.
The liver plays an important role in metabolism. It controls the proteins in the blood and the distribution of nutrients such as iron. The liver regulates cholesterol and triglycerides and eliminates toxins.
One of the main functions of the liver is to filter toxic materials from the body. Since both antibiotics and alcohol are toxic, it is the liver that metabolizes them.
If this toxic material accumulates, toxic hepatitis occurs. To determine if your liver’s metabolism is working properly, doctors use liver function tests. These tests are used to assess liver activity.
Tests that indicate liver function
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Toxic hepatitis
Hepatic metabolism: risk of resistance
Nowadays, bacteria are becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics. This is a serious global public health problem. To avoid this, we should follow the instructions of drug manufacturers, do not take drugs without consulting a doctor and do not take antibiotics to treat viral diseases such as flu or colds. We must also avoid the association between antibiotics and other substances, such as alcohol.
