I’ve just started an antibiotics course which is 4 times a day for 10 days and that got me wondering if they would be just as effective if I took them all and why not.
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Drugs are like food – you can’t just eat a week’s worth in an hour and hope you’re not hungry again till 8 days have passed. You have to keep a required amount in the system all the time to get the job done, and the body is constantly using what you put in so you have to keep topping it up.
Drugs are the same in that the digestive system which breaks down food and gets it to where it needs to get to doesn’t differentiate drugs from food. So after a while the drug is also broken down just like food, and the remnants are used up or excreted also just like food.
Lastly, there is a large amount of evolutionary overlap between all species. So the drug acting on say the pathogen’s cell membrane production system may also have a small effect on your cell membrane production system, and if you overdose on the drug that effect may be pronounced in your system. And any other off target side effects you’d get from the small dose you are meant to take would be huge if you took the entire course in one go.
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