Antibiotics Useless for Bronchitis

Nov. 16, 2006 — -- Cold and cough season is upon us.

If you have a lingering cough caused by bronchitis, though, a new study suggests that antibiotics won't do a thing to help.

Antibiotics are often prescribed for treatment of bronchitis, but the drugs are hardly a help to patients.

Bronchitis is a type of inflammation that causes coughing, wheezing and possibly fever. It hits about 5 percent of adults in the United States every year. Most cases aren't serious and eventually go away on their own.

Even though antibiotics are no match for bronchitis-causing viruses, a new review published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine reports that 70 percent to 80 percent of people with bronchitis are still prescribed antibiotics by their doctors.

Furthermore, the review finds that nearly 100 percent of bronchitis patients also get a prescription for cough medication even they are also pretty useless.

Not only are the medications useless, they can actually do harm.

Researchers say taking antibiotics for this type of cough will give you all of the side effects and none of the relief that a patient might want from the medication.

These drugs simply don't work on viruses, but the drugs may add stomach pain, diarrhea and rashes to an already bothersome cough.

Antibiotic overuse can also lead to antibiotic resistant bacterial infections -- such as the potentially fatal methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Taking an antibiotic isn't at all like taking, say, a vitamin. This commonly prescribed class of medications has a very real effect on the body's immune system.

Most doctors say the best remedy for this kind of cough includes fluids, a humidifier, and an over-the-counter medication if you have a fever.

So, why do many of these same doctors still give patients prescriptions for useless antibiotics?

Doctors still give drugs that don't help in part because patients demand them, but many doctors say this isn't the patient's fault -- they have actually trained patients, in a sense, to expect antibiotics.