Can you combine alcohol and antibiotics? Even doctors do not give an exact answer to this popular question. And while some are categorically against such duets, others say it's important to consider what kind of alcohol you're drinking and how much. There is also a third opinion that by competently approaching the subject one can be successfully treated while maintaining social activity.
Is it really necessary to give up alcohol in combination with a course of antibiotics? Let's find out.
Much depends on the active substance of the drug. Some types of antibiotics are not friends with alcohol at all, while others can interact normally. Of course, after reading this article, mixing alcohol with pills is not worth it. However, knowing about certain things will help not to panic, but to correctly understand the problem if for some reason you still drank alcohol during antibiotic therapy.
Antibiotics and alcohol: myths and legends
There is a version that scary stories spread after the war that alcohol and antibiotics should not be combined. The first legend says that at that time sex clinics in our country and abroad were simply overcrowded. The patients are soldiers and officers who have fully tasted the "stimulus" of martial law. The medical staff deliberately intimidated patients and spoke of the dire consequences of the combination of alcohol and antibiotics, since after drinking the patients could get into all sorts of serious troubles again and the result of such "exploits" could well be a new sexual infection.
Another legend has it that penicillin evaporated due to the laborious process of obtaining it from the urine of treated soldiers. Because of this, soldiers were forbidden to drink beer during therapy.
The danger of drinking alcohol while taking antibiotics is in the air and modern man prefers to avoid such mixtures. But what does evidence-based medicine think about this?
What do the studies say?
At the beginning of the 21st century, studies were conducted on the effect of ethanol on different types of antibiotics. Experiments on laboratory animals and human subjects have shown that alcohol does not affect most types of antibiotics.
The antibiotics tested were therefore equally effective in the experimental and control groups. Significant deviations in the mechanisms of absorption, distribution in the body and excretion of decomposition products were not found.
By the way, there is a hypothesis that taking alcoholic beverages increases the adverse effect of antibiotics on the liver. Such cases are rarely described in the medical literature due to their infrequent occurrence (up to 10 cases per 100, 000). At the same time, no further studies were conducted in this regard. Are all fears unfounded?
What antibiotics can not be combined with alcohol
No, the fears are not unfounded: there are a number of antibiotics that cause extremely unpleasant symptoms when they come into contact with alcohol - the so-called disulfiram-like reaction. The reaction occurs during the chemical interaction of ethanol with some specific antibiotic molecules, which changes the exchange of ethyl alcohol in the body. In particular, there is an accumulation of an intermediate substance - acetaldehyde. Poisoning with this substance leads to the following symptoms:
- strong headache
- nausea and nausea
- increased pulse
- Redness of the face, neck, chest area, "heat" in them
- intermittent heavy breathing
- limb cramps
Large amounts of alcohol can be deadly!
These symptoms are very difficult to bear and often lead to fear of suffocation or death. Disulfiram-like reaction is used in clinics for the treatment of alcoholism ("coding").
Antibiotics that can cause these symptoms:
- Active substance metronidazole
- Active substance ketoconazole (prescribed for thrush, e. g. in the form of suppositories)
- Active substance furazolidone (prescribed for food poisoning or diarrhea of a non-specific type)
- Active substance chloramphenicol (poisonous, rarely used: for infections of the urinary tract, biliary tract and some other diseases)
- Active substance cotrimoxazole (can be prescribed for infections of the respiratory tract, kidneys and ureters, prostatitis)
- Active substance lornoxicam (for the treatment of bacterial infections of the respiratory and ENT organs, kidneys, urinary tract, etc. )
- Active substance tinidazole (commonly prescribed for infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which causes stomach ulcers)
- Active substance cefamandole (injections for infections of an unspecified type)
- Active substance cefoperazone (available in injections, they treat the respiratory tract, including pneumonia, bacterial diseases of the genitourinary system and other diseases)
- Active ingredient moxifloxacin (broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribed for severe illness, including fever, when a bacterial infection is suspected)
Alcohol should be avoided during therapy with these drugs (both oral drugs and suppositories or eye drops)!
To make sure that your antibiotic is not one of the medicines that must not be taken with alcohol, contact your doctor and read the instructions for the medicine carefully.
rational decision
When treating diseases with antibiotics, in no case should you overload your body with alcoholic beverages. After all, like any toxic substance in the body, ethanol must be "neutralized". To fight the poison, the body throws out additional reserves, often the last ones, especially if the disease is protracted. The energy expenditure on cleaning the body can damage the immune system andsignificantly increase recovery time.
In addition, studies and medical practice confirm that both alcohol and antibiotics have a depressant effect on the liver.
Despite the fact that the opinions of experts are divided on the compatibility of alcoholic beverages and antibacterial agents (except for drugs, which have categorical restrictions), most believe that it is better to refuse alcohol during antibiotic therapy . Also, you should know: if during therapy you drank another glass of wine, then you should not refuse the next antibiotic (of course, if it is a drug for which there is no contraindication to alcohol).