Antibiotics are influential in the stopping of bacteria and other infections. The real question though is if they are more harmful then they are good? This essay will focus on whether or not antibiotics affect the human microbiome, how does the human microbiome respond to antibiotics and how does it respond when a person stops taking antibiotics. Firstly, antibiotics do affect the human microbiome very heavily. In today’s medical system antibiotics are the first option when trying to fight dangerous microbes. This is troublesome as modern medicine relies so heavily on it even though many pathogens observed in the human microbiome are harmless and can even help (Tennesen 2011). Using to many antibiotics builds up a resistance to them. This is because the human microbiome builds up a resistance to the antibiotics and then instead of preventing diseases it upset the microbial community and the disease then takes over as the microbiome no longer fights to prevent it. In a study done by David Relman at Stanford …show more content…
This causes the weeds to be killed and eliminated by the fire but you also kill the grass and the trees and all other plants that are beneficial to the area. When a person uses antibiotics, the human microbiome reacts very badly. The microbiome gets rid of all different types of bacteria whether or not it is good when antibiotics are used. This makes is so the bacteria aren’t evenly distributed anymore. This causes certain bacteria to be more dominant the others, whereas a healthy microbiome no species are dominant, and the ecosystem is more productive and resistant to major changes (Tennesen 2011). The microbiome isn’t as resistant to changes when antibiotics are used and the microbiome is more susceptible to viruses and