Vitamin Z is not a vitamin, It is a popular term among American doctors. Refers to the doctor forced by the patient’s request, Antibiotics given to patients as placebos. A typical example is viral pneumonia. Particularly in children, Knowing that antibiotics are useless for viral pneumonia, But at the request of the patient’s parents, Antibiotics such as azithromycin are usually prescribed, In this case, antibiotics act like vitamins, There is no therapeutic effect, Only psychological comfort effect. Clinicians often have an antibiotic plot in their hearts. In the days when there were no antibiotics, Bacterial infections are the biggest headaches for doctors, Some people joke that, Every gray hair on the doctor’s head represents a patient who died of bacterial infection. After antibiotics appeared, For one thing, because the fear of bacterial infection still exists in medical education, Let generations of doctors inherit it, Secondly, there are problems in doctors’ understanding of antibiotics, Or excessive trust and dependence on antibiotics, This has led to a very serious abuse of antibiotics in the past half century or so. There was a recent case in the United States. A doctor had a sore throat, fever, weakness, Let him think it could be streptococcal infection, Hurry to the emergency. Of course, he and the doctor who showed him the emergency understand very well. Instead of taking antibiotics in spite of willy-nilly, Instead of taking samples from the throat, Bacterial culture. The result of bacterial culture is negative, It means it’s not a bacterial infection, It’s a viral infection. Antibiotics don’t work on viruses, The sick doctor knew this very well. But the doctor in the emergency room prescribed him antibiotics. The reason is that bacterial culture is not necessarily reliable, Taking antibiotics can prevent secondary bacterial infection. The sick doctor did not want or have the strength to argue with him. And left with the prescription, He didn’t go to get the medicine. This matter made him realize deeply, [Vitamin Z] is not all prescribed by doctors under pressure from patients, His condition suggest that a large part of [vitamin Z] was prescribed by that doctor on his own initiative. In the case of antibiotic abuse, Doctors should not just shift the responsibility to patients, But to take responsibility, Correct this behavior. The situation around me is also consistent with what he said. A large proportion of doctors do not have a correct understanding of antibiotics, Only from the doctor’s point of view, Let doctors have the right knowledge of antibiotics, Only in this way can the problem of antibiotic abuse be fundamentally solved. Among the doctors I contacted who did not know the correct understanding of antibiotics, Many people are unaware of the consequences of antibiotic abuse. Antibiotic abuse is most often mentioned as bacterial drug resistance. With the widespread use and abuse of antibiotics, The problem of drug-resistant bacteria is getting more and more serious. There are reasons for clinical use of antibiotics, There are also reasons for the heavy use of antibiotics in the breeding industry. Some doctors believe that The use of antibiotics by individual patients has little impact on the overall environment of bacterial drug resistance. Although this view is reasonable, But if most doctors think so, Their patients together will have a huge impact. On the basis of this understanding, When faced with viral diseases such as the common cold, These doctors believe that antibiotics can prevent secondary bacterial infections, Its benefits outweigh the harm of promoting further deterioration of bacterial drug resistance. Prevention is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the medical field. Antibiotics are therapeutic drugs. It is true that some drugs can have certain preventive effects. But that’s for chronic diseases, For example, aspirin can provide some preventive effect on tumors. For infectious diseases, The only vaccine that can play a preventive role is a vaccine that can stimulate an immune response. It is not only theoretically impossible to prevent bacterial infections with antibacterial drugs, And it has been proved by practice. After sulfanilamide came out, Regular use of the drug is thought to prevent bacterial infections, As a result, many bacteria developed sulfanilamide resistance in a very short period of time. After the advent of penicillin and streptomycin, It is also the same mistake. Only when bacterial infection exists, Only antibiotics can produce results. In the absence of bacterial infection, Antibiotics can only promote bacteria to develop drug resistance, But there are other consequences that will be discussed below. The same is true of viral treatment drugs. Because of the nature of the virus infection, Viral treatment drugs are usually taken at the initial stage of infection, It is believed by many doctors that it can play a preventive role. Hence the high level of abuse, The consequence is also to promote drug resistance of the virus. A large proportion of doctors believe that Secondary bacterial infections following viral infections are common, Or it is not easy to distinguish between viral infection and bacterial infection, Therefore, using antibiotics is a safe practice. Take the common cold as an example. Secondary bacterial infections are indeed common, However, this secondary bacterial infection is caused by the fact that the surface cells of the respiratory tract are sensitive to bacteria present in the respiratory tract after being damaged by the virus. These bacteria will not cause infection under normal circumstances. After catching the common cold, These bacteria infect damaged cells and kill the surface cells, In addition, it will not cause any other harm. It is not much different from the damage caused by the virus. Although antibiotics can kill these normally harmless bacteria, But it has no effect on the symptoms and progress of the disease. Only for young and old people, These secondary bacterial infections can sometimes be more severe, Even infects deep lung cells, Bacterial pneumonia and other conditions occur, Antibiotics should only be used at such times. In addition to promoting bacterial drug resistance, The greatest impact of antibiotic abuse on individual patients is to harm the flora existing in the oral cavity and digestive tract. Because antibiotics kill all bacteria indiscriminately. Many bacteria in the oral cavity and digestive tract are beneficial to human body. Regular use of antibiotics will change the structure of these flora. For example, studies have found that Regular use of antibiotics, Can cause oral flora to develop drug resistance, And transfer the drug resistance gene to the intestinal flora. According to data from the United States, More than half of the antibiotics given to children are used to treat upper respiratory tract infections caused by viral infections. Making these children more sensitive to drug-resistant bacteria. Take Clostridium difficile as an example, Every year, 14,000 children die of Clostridium difficile diarrhea in the United States. 71% of children infected with Clostridium difficile took antibiotics in the 12 weeks before infection. The study found that Due to the influence of antibiotics on intestinal flora, The risk of food poisoning is five times higher for those who take antibiotics than for those who do not take antibiotics. Antibiotics destroy the protective function of normal intestinal flora to human body. Making the human body more susceptible to bacterial infection. Compared with Americans, The frequency of bacterial infectious diseases in China is much higher, Not because the environment is too dirty, But because of antibiotic abuse. Use antibiotics whenever you get sick, Many people are very sensitive to bacterial infection. The most direct harm of antibiotic abuse is the self-destructive behavior that weakens the human body’s defense ability. As a clinician, one should re-evaluate one’s understanding of antibiotics, establish a correct concept, adhere to the principle of careful use and targeted in medical practice, and help patients and their families to establish a correct understanding, which is an important step to improve the health level of the whole people.