Question: Will the human body become immune to antibiotics in the future?

Remsha Afzal answered on 7 Nov 2018: last edited 14 Nov 2018 3:35 pm

Hi Nicole, thanks for that wonderful question. 🙂

Actually, its not humans that become immune to antibiotics. Its those BAAAD bacteria. You see we use antibiotics to help our bodies fight off bacteria. If an antibiotic stops working, it means the bacteria is the one that has evolved into something stronger, and has become resistant to the antibiotic’s effects. 🙁

So will bacteria become resistant or immune to antibiotics in the future? There isn’t a simple answer! Firstly, it depends on the type of bacteria. Just like humans are different, bacteria are way more different than we give them credit for. So its hard to make a general statement for ALL the bacteria out there. But the good thing is only a few bacteria are actually harmful to humans.
Having said that, think of us and the harmful bacteria being at war!! We are constantly trying to kill each other haha. 😛 Bacteria get immune to our weapons, the antibiotics! Why? Because if you expose yourself to something too much, you eventually become used to it, no? For example, if you travel from a hot to a cold country you may feel very cold at the start but overtime you’ll get used to it. This is a similar idea. If you expose the bacteria too many times to the same antibiotic and that too in not enough dose to kill it off (like when people don’t finish their full course of medication and leave it hanging once they start to feel better), the bacteria will become immune to it.
In practice we often use a mix of different antibiotics as treatments so the bacteria doesn’t have enough time to become resistant to all of them at the same time. But we still need to constantly be at battle against those shady bacteria and keep looking for newer, stronger treatments.