According to a new study published in the Journal of General Medicine: while antibiotics are effective against bacterial infections, they’re not always the solution for respiratory issues like acute bronchitis. The study was able to ascertain that antibiotics wouldn’t help in several acute bronchitis or cough cases because they are mostly viral in nature.
Jennifer Pisano, MD, an associate professor of medicine at UChicago Medicine who agreed with the new finding advises that emphasizes must be placed on judicious antibiotic prescribing practices, particularly in cases where antibiotics may not provide significant benefit and may even lead to potential harm. She believes this approach would help preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics for when they are truly needed and reduce the risk of antibiotic resistance.
Roughly 30% of individuals suffering from acute bronchitis are given a prescription for antibiotics.
The research focused on individuals with lower respiratory tract infections, commonly known as acute bronchitis, characterized by symptoms such as a persistent cough and fever, primarily affecting the airways.
According to the lead author of the paper; Dan Merenstein, cough represents the most frequent illness-related cause for doctor’s visits and there are well-established ways to determine if antibiotics should be given. 29% of over 700 people between the ages of 18 and 75 years old who visited their primary care doctor with acute bronchitis and were on the observational study between June 2019 and April 2023, received at least one antibiotic — and all antibiotics prescribed were appropriate.
The 29% also represented people who presented moderate to severe cough coupled with shortness of breath, lightheadedness, nausea, or vomiting. However, while these patients anticipated that the duration of their cough would be shortened by days after taking the antibiotics, the results showed that they had their cough for a day and a half longer compared with those who didn’t get prescribed an antibiotic.
Antibiotics Didn’t Help — Even When the Cough Was Caused by Bacteria and Not a Virus
The researchers also found that antibiotics did not effectively alleviate cough symptoms, even in cases where the infection was bacterial. They suggested that this could be due to the common practice of prescribing antibiotics for respiratory infections in primary care settings without determining whether the infection is bacterial or viral.
“Providers, even though well intended, may prescribe antibiotics out of fear of missing a bacterial infection that could lead to a worse outcome based on older age or worse symptoms, and this study gives us data that should help decrease those fears,” said Pisano.
Therefore taking antibiotics when you the cause of your bad cough has not been established isn’t recommended as it can lead to antibiotic resistance, nausea, diarrhea, allergic reactions and reduced gut microbiome.