to be really annoyed about antibiotics?

[WaterfallsOver]

Or rather their misuse. I have parent friends who run to the GP every time little Billy has a cough, demanding antibiotics, so many people see them as a panacea. I'm not medically trained but I know they don't work on viruses and many illnesses need to run their course with no medical intervention.

The news is telling us antibiotics won't work in a few years due to over/misuse. I feel really angry that selfishness and stupidity mean in a few years people may die from infections resistant to antibiotics :( if they were only used for serious illness perhaps we'd have a chance. There was a guy who died from resistant infection on the news :(

Back before the NHS and antibiotics there were tons of home treatments for illnesses...my GM was a great believer in poultices and my dad has many a horror story of her ministrations!
But I can see why...no money for a doctor, no good treatment if you could afford one, so you tried to help your child/family member yourself.
At least you felt you were doing something I guess.
It's like when I run my children a warm bath when they have a cold-cough, or olbas oil in the pillow case...it won't cure them but may ease their symptoms for a while.
The first time I heard of the garlic cure for a cold was form an Italian I knew, but he said you had to eat a while clove or garlic, raw for it to have any effect.
Surprisingly, I have never tried it :)

seeker is correct. Anecdote, reported as case series (research reporting a single/small number of cases where an intervention, ie diet, has had an effect), leading on to case control, cohort studies etc. Randomised controlled trials are the gold standard to test for causal links - ie that the diet is scientifically 'proven' to result in X result. But the outcome of a change in diet certainly could be tested with a case control study (get a bunch of people with the condition and give them the diet, compared to a bunch of people without the condition but of similar age/sex/socioeconomic/educational background/smoking status etc. and see if there's a difference in a quantifiable outcome. Not sure what diet you're talking about - possibly if no studies are published its because i) they're all negative and not worth publishing, or the funding body has decided not to publish (as you can obviously publish negative findings), ii) no studies done - as not enough interest/funding/cases iii) ethical issues (diets in children would still be ethical issues, but could still do a study looking back at children who have been on the diet vs those not on the diet and compare outcomes - studies like this can be subject to being biased by people's memory of events/their condition so may not carry as much weight though as other study designs.

But its certainly not impossible to do.

I do agree that I don't think there's any harm in taking a garlic capsule or whatever for a cold or infection. But then its likely its not making a significant positive impact either. Might have an effect on the borders...you never know. That's how I think of alternative therapy's - could help on the borderlines but big issues generally require clinically proven medical assistance based on robust evidence of its efficacy (from more than one source, from various study designs).

Saintly...I have heard about the gaps diet and cf/GF and know some people that it has helped.
My son included, although we are not strictly cf/GF but just cut down carbs and more protein.
It has cured his bowel problems and stomach pains.
Btw, last post should have read whole bulb of garlic!! Not just a clove!...

Yes that's true Badvoc.

My dad's life was saved by new fangled antibiotics when he was a baby with pneumonia. My grandmother was amazed, had never seen anything like it. My dad is now prone to chest problems as he has pleural plaques - of course the irony is if he develops pneumonia now they may well struggle to shift it and something that was miraculous at the beginning of his life may well not work by the end of his life. We may be back to trying home remedies and nothing else.

And that is as a result of misuse.

TBH, for colds, I prefer to let my immune system do its work.
Rest, eat as well as possible, and let any fever do its work.
We tend to fill ourselves with fever remedies when it's usually there to help us get rid of the bugs.

We no longer need the diet badvoc - not in the way we did when he was younger as his gut has healed, although I try to avoid too much g/c, sugars and additives.

BTW if you ever come across anyone who has a really, really strange reaction to peanuts send them my way. I have never seen anything like ds1 on peanuts (ground, organic, nothing else added). He seems fine with them now, but then his gut has healed.

Nipitintheblood- it's a crank diet devised by a quack who runs a clinic called the Cambridge Nutrition Centre that just happens to be in Cambridge, and which gets credibility by association.

Yep agree with that as well Lueji - I tend to let lowish fever run their course, although I do tend to give something if it's heading towards 40.

Although DS3 refuses all fever remedies (actually all medicines) anyway

"case control study (get a bunch of people with the condition and give them the diet, compared to a bunch of people without the condition but of similar age/sex/socioeconomic/educational background/smoking status etc. and see if there's a difference in a quantifiable outcome."

Actually, the control group would be people with the condition, but different (normal) diet.

I've just posted a link to a recent (2012) study on the diet. Not the GAPS diet, the gfcf one - but the ideas behind them are similar. Actually the GAPS diet is probably healthier (but harder to do).

Are you suggesting the neurologist and paediatrician are cranks seeker?

The consultants and neurologists may have been going by 'informed' anecdotal evidence gleaned from attending conferences and speaking to other medics and academics in the UK and elsewhere. The UK is very evidence based - we go by the NICE guidelines which consider published research - this is to ensure our drugs/treatements are proven to work - for the good of the patient (and the Treasury unfortunately!).

In the US as they don't have an all encompassing NHS and as they're insurance based health so have more money than us, so they aren't/don't have to be as evidence based. They seem to embrace more new technology/treatments, which in the UK we don't do (although for good reasons - some new drugs may work, some new drugs may not).

So maybe the consultants thought give it a whirl through hearing good things on the US medical grapevine (where the autism (all) research funding is better) and as its unlikely to do harm, they suggeted you give it a go. And why not, if its worked for you all to the better.

It might not work for everyone, but its not necessarily as it doesn't work - it might not have a scientific basis, but it might and we have haven't tweaked the parameters sufficiently to show in what groups/genetic constitutions the diet may work?

I've already linked to a paper about the diet - albeit one with a few obvious problems.

No. I am suggesting that the paediatrician may very well have thought that the diet do could do no harm.

It takes a quack to claim that changing your gut flora will cure schizophrenia. Which the quack in question does. Or that the daughters of women who weren't breastfed will have children with faulty gut flora. Or that the "autism epidemic" is linked to breastfeeding/not breastfeeding.

Yes nipinthebud. That was exactly why I made the decision to try the diet in 2001 (I have also worked in autism research and spoken to many researchers myself). But at that time ds1's paediatrician thought this was something to be ridiculed.

Ten years later his new paediatrician and neurologist seemed to have read the stuff I'd read in 2001 and so recommended we try the diet.

Had I listened to the original paediatrician then ds1 would not have benefitted from the diet and would quite possibly have been damaged by what he was eating.

My point was that sometimes even doctors will take a view on something - and if it's safe then sometimes it can be worth having a go rather than refusing to use something because there haven't been clinicial trials (especially when it's something that isn't necessarily ever going to see clinical trials.)

OK well here's the science behind autism and gut flora. Derrick MacFabe is very approachable, he'll happily pass on any papers etc.

That's interesting I remember a T.V. programme about a mum who had 2 or DS'S with autism and she discovered that they were addicted to gluten so much that they licked the wallpaper paste to get to it She was very insightful because this was approx. 10 years ago and like you she was ridiculed by the medics. for taking them off gluten etc. but it calmed them a lot.

ppeatfruit

Did I say anything about a cure for cancer?

I was pointing out that drugs for cancer, diabetes etc have been developed from natural substances.

In the case of cancer, anthracyclines (a chemo drug) have been developed from marine microbacteria.

No I was commenting on your link.

lueji "case control study (get a bunch of people with the condition and give them the diet, compared to a bunch of people without the condition but of similar age/sex/socioeconomic/educational background/smoking status etc. and see if there's a difference in a quantifiable outcome."

Actually, the control group would be people with the condition, but different (normal) diet.

Yes! Sorry!

So similar to the study I have linked to then.

Although tbh if you want the reasons why these diets are tried (and the issues they're trying to address) you need the Derrick Macfabe link I gave. Lots and lots of peer reviewed papers there.

You have a problem with your 'get a bunch of people with the condition' though as autism is not one condition. And the subgroups have not been identified yet. No-one would suggest the diet was going to be appropriate in every case (something addressed in the study I linked to).

Also you can't compare between children very well because development in autistic kids is not even (well not without a huge study). I suppose you could look at something like incidences of head banging or self injury between groups. But you would have to identify the correct subgroup.

Well as a nurse i thought i knew a fair bit about antibiotics. However a couple of years ago I had a very sore throat, glands up, raging fever. All the usual symptoms of a viral throat infection. Now having had several of these a year from my teens and never having antibiotics or needing them, I thought i would just sit it out and wait until it cleared up on its own. I spent a dreadful night delirious with fever and in absolute agony. In my desperation I went to the GP who took one look at my pussy tonsils and told me off for not going in sooner. I had a terrible case of Strep Throat (bacterial infection) which untreated can lead to complications like kidney failure as most untreated infections can if the infection goes systemic. After just a day I improved radically. Antibiotics are sometimes necessary and if a treatment may make someone better why take the risk of them getting sepsis.

What really needs to be done, like lots of others have said is for new antibiotics to be developed as soon as possible. Not enough money and research has been invested as there is more money to be with other drugs. I'm afraid we have all taken it for granted a bit and now we are starting to see the future may look bleak if new ABs are not developed soon.

Google Andrew Read TEDMED chairman - he explains why he thinks it is unwise to rely on developing new antibiotics as a strategy.

ppeatfruit

I think you must be confusing me with someone else - I haven't posted any links on this thread!

NDM-1 spread around the globe in 18 months, according to Prof Tim Walsh. It takes approx 10 years to get a drug on the market from conception of idea. New antibiotic discovery is desperately needed, but is not the only thing required. Improving basic sanitation in third world countries, reducing antibiotic misuse and improving hospital hygiene are all worthwhile and required activities.