As the season of sickness looms, Professor Tim Spector has issued a stark warning about the potential long-term effects of antibiotics, cautioning that it could result in a recovery period extending even into the summer months.
A multitude of Brits may find themselves grappling with colds, respiratory ailments and various other bacterial infections this winter, potentially turning to antibiotics for relief.
However, this could lead to their bodies struggling to recuperate for up to half a year, not due to the illness itself, but because of the medication they’ve taken.
With the winter freeze setting in, Professor Tim Spector and Dr Will Bulsiewicz joined the ZOE Science and Nutrition podcast to shed light on some lesser-known impacts of most antibiotics.
While these medical wonders target harmful bacteria-causing illnesses, they also affect the essential bacteria naturally present in our gut.
These bacteria play a crucial role in digestion, immune health and can even influence the types of food you crave. This means the unseen effect of antibiotics could potentially harm your body more than the disease it’s intended to treat.
However, the professor pointed out one particular type of food that could significantly aid in recovery: fermented foods.
He specifically mentioned yoghurts, cheese, kefir, sauerkraut and kombucha. Although he added that yoghurts and cheese were lower on his list as they contain less diversity in probiotic cultures compared to the other fermented options.
Fermented foods are rich in probiotics that nourish our gut bacteria, the same ones affected by antibiotics. He stated: “They have lower doses compared to probiotics (pills) but most of them have many more species or types of microbes than you’d find in a capsule.”
He explained that everyone’s unique microbiome won’t respond the same way to each species of probiotic microbe, so he suggested “throwing the kitchen sink at your problems” with as much and as diverse an array of fermented items as you can find in the hopes that at least one will take hold. However, he also issued a significant warning for those new to the fermented food section.
The professor cautioned: “You can be conned very easily in this game. It shouldn’t have a shelf life of two years. If it’s really cheap, it’s unlikely to be the real thing. Check there isn’t a huge amount of sugars or artificial sweeteners and that it hasn’t been pasteurised, this might be in tiny little letters to give it a longer shelf life.”
Beyond fermented foods, Professor Tim encouraged everyone, not just those recently off antibiotics, to increase their fibre intake through a diverse range of plant foods in their diet. He explained, referring to the bacteria in our gut: “That will impact the good guys and getting more of those good guys in, they’ll suppress the bad guys. The bad guys like inflammation, a slightly stressed gut.”
Limiting your eating hours can also be beneficial if timed correctly: “Give your gut a rest overnight. Microbes themselves have a sort of late-night cleaning service, so they can come in and really tidy up your mucosal layer. It’s a combination of those things.”
The expert emphasized that one of the best ways to protect your gut microbiome is to avoid antibiotics whenever possible: “If you look at the literature, often the difference between taking and not taking them is about one day of symptoms. This is true for many conditions that do self-resolve, not all but many. Anyone that values their gut microbiome more than a day of nasal symptoms need to take note.”
Dr Will highlighted a study on the recovery time of the gut after a course of antibiotics: “The vast majority of people recover by 8 weeks but there was a small subset that took a harder hit and it basically started to resemble the gut of an ICU patient. These particular people didn’t get back to their baseline for about 6 months, but they did get back.”