Why do bacteria gain resistance to antibiotics but not bleach and other disinfectants?
In: Biology
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Beach and alcohol physically harm the germs like a giant stepping on an army. It works so we’ll because it would kill anything, your own healthy cells included, which is why those are only used on surfaces & on the outside of your body.
Antibiotics encourage your body to make more of your normal germ fighters and equip them with better weapons. Because they have to know what the enemy looks like in order to not destroy the rest of you, the bad guys can learn to hide from them.
If you throw a hundred people into a volcano and one lands on a ridge instead of the fire, they don’t develop lava resistance.
Think of antibiotics as a key or set of lockpicks and bleach as a sledgehammer.
Both are going to open the door, right?
One is more precise & will take longer.
Once the door to the cell is open, the body can go in & kill the disease.
(Not an exact analogy.)
Bleach destroys the structure of the cell; antibiotics prevent it from living… can’t use energy, or reproduce, or whatever, the antibiotic interferes with a cellular mechanism it needs for survival.
If enough bacteria can develop a workaround (throw the deadbolt, enter & exit through the window), and reproduce, then that antibiotic (pick the door lock) becomes ineffective against that strain of bacteria.
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