Edit: Thank you very much for the gold! I hope the comments made to this post were as helpful to others as they were to me.
In: Biology
An important distinction to make here, as it’s often misunderstood: **tolerance** and drug **resistance** are not the same thing.
**Tolerance** is the reduced reaction of a human patient to drugs due to repeated or prolonged use.
**Resistance** is the reduction of effectiveness of antibiotic and antiviral drugs due to the acquired resistance of the bacteria or viruses they are meant to treat. Simply put, resistance is a bacteria learning to defend itself against antibiotics, resulting in stronger pathogens which cannot be fought against with routine antibiotics. This endangers patients in the long-term as antibiotics simply stop working to protect us. Routine surgeries become more dangerous as a minor infection can become deadly.
Latest Answers