All people get sick from time to time and many of them have to resort to antibiotics. There is a widespread belief in society that these drugs are incompatible with alcohol, but what if the treatment period coincides with the holidays? Where is the truth and where is the legend in our understanding of the interaction of antibiotics with alcoholic beverages?
Antibiotics and alcohol
Antibiotics are drugs designed to fight bacteria. They penetrate pathogenic microorganisms or interfere with their metabolism, disrupting it completely or partially.
The question of the compatibility of antibiotics with alcohol and when you can drink after therapy, doctors still have a different attitude. There are many doctors who strongly recommend that patients avoid alcohol altogether during therapy to avoid the consequences of taking antibiotics and alcohol at the same time. They explain this by the fact that these drugs, together with ethanol, destroy the liver and deny the effectiveness of treatment.
To date, many studies have been conducted, the results of which allow us to safely say that the pharmacological effect of most antibiotics under the influence of alcohol does not worsen and the load on the liver does not increase.
However, alcohol itself causes intoxication and dehydration. If you drink antibiotics with large doses of alcohol, the body will lose weight and in this case the effectiveness of treatment, of course, will decrease.
A number of antibiotics are also isolated, which react in a reaction similar to disulfiram with ethanol. Concomitant use with alcohol is contraindicated, as it will cause intoxication, accompanied by nausea and vomiting, convulsions. In very rare cases, death is possible.
Myths and reality
Historically, there have been myths in society about the complications of drinking alcohol during antibiotic treatment.
The main myths are as follows:
- Alcohol neutralizes the effect of antibiotics.
- Alcohol, along with antibiotics, increases liver damage.
- Alcoholic beverages reduce the effectiveness of experimental therapy.
In fact, these are only partially true, which is confirmed by the results of numerous compatibility studies. In particular, the available data suggest that alcohol intake does not affect the pharmacokinetics of most antibiotics.
At the end of the 20th and 21st centuries, many studies were conducted on the combined action of antibacterial drugs and alcohol. The experiments involved humans and laboratory animals. The results of antibiotic therapy are the same in the experimental and control groups, but there are no significant deviations in the absorption, distribution and excretion of the active substances of the drugs from the body. Data from these studies show that it is possible to drink alcohol while taking antibiotics.
As early as 1982, Finnish scientists conducted a series of experiments among volunteers, the results of which showed that antibiotics from the penicillin group do not react with ethanol, so you can use them with alcohol. In 1988, Spanish researchers tested amoxicillin for compatibility with alcohol: only minor changes in the rate of absorption and the delay time were found in a group of subjects.
It has also been found that the pharmacokinetic parameters of some antibiotics, such as the tetracycline group, are significantly reduced under the influence of alcohol. However, fewer drugs with this effect have been identified.
The common belief that alcoholic beverages, along with alcohol, increase liver damage is also refuted by scientists around the world. Rather, alcohol may increase the hepatotoxicity of antibacterial drugs, but only in very rare cases. This fact becomes the exception rather than the rule.
The researchers also showed that ethanol did not affect the antibiotics used to treat experimental pneumococcal infection in experimental rats.
Reasons for incompatibility
Despite the fact that the safety of concomitant use of most antibiotics with alcohol has been proven, there are a number of drugs that are incompatible with alcohol. These are drugs whose active substances react in a disulfiram-like manner with ethyl alcohol, mainly nitroimidazoles and cephalosporins.
The reason why it is impossible to take antibiotics and alcohol at the same time lies in the fact that the composition of the above drugs contains specific molecules that can alter the metabolism of ethanol. As a result, there is a delay in the release of acetaldehyde, which accumulates in the body and leads to intoxication.
The process is accompanied by characteristic symptoms:
- intense headache;
- rapid heartbeat;
- nausea with vomiting;
- heat in the face, neck, chest;
- difficulty breathing;
- convulsions.
A disulfiram-like reaction is used to encode alcoholism, but this method should only be used under the close supervision of a specialist. Even a small dose of alcohol causes poisoning during treatment with nitroimidazoles and cephalosporins. Alcohol abuse in this case can lead to death.
Doctors allow a small amount of alcohol in the treatment of penicillins, antifungal drugs and some broad-spectrum antibiotics. A portion of fortified drink while taking these drugs will not affect the effectiveness of therapy and will not cause adverse health effects.
When it will be possible
Although alcohol is allowed with most antibiotics, they should not be taken at the same time. The better to take such drugs, it is stated in the instructions.
For example, the effectiveness of erythromycin and tetracyclines increases drinking alkaline mineral water, and sulfonamides, indomethacin and reserpine - with milk.
If the antibiotic does not react like disulfiram with ethanol, you can drink alcohol, but not earlier than 4 hours after the medicine. This is the minimum time that antibiotics circulate in the blood, respectively, and is the answer to the question of how much you can drink after taking the drug.
In any case, only a small dose of alcohol is allowed during the treatment period, otherwise dehydration will begin in the body and the antibacterial drug will simply be excreted in the urine.
The combination of alcohol with any antibacterial composition is dangerous for the body. Once you know how long after taking the drug is allowed to drink alcohol, you can rule out all possible side effects.
conclusions
The myth of the incompatibility of antibiotics and alcohol emerged in the last century, while there are several hypotheses about the reasons for its occurrence. According to one of them, the authorship of the legend belongs to venereologists who wanted to warn their patients against drunkenness.
There is also speculation that the myth was invented by European doctors. Penicillin was a drug shortage in the 1940s, and soldiers loved to drink beer, which had a diuretic effect and removed the drug from the body.
It has already been shown that alcohol in most cases does not affect the effectiveness of antibiotics and does not increase liver damage. If the active substances of the drug do not react like disulfiram with ethanol, you can drink alcohol during treatment. However, two basic rules must be followed: do not abuse alcohol and do not drink an antibiotic with it.