"Can medications influence our microbiome and if so, which ones?" I was recently asked this following my webinar about the skin-gut connection. A good question, I think, because we are normally told that medication is in principle necessary for illness to inhibit the disease or cure or return to 'our health'. But is medication only good or can it also harm our health?
My books about 'The skin-gut axis' (2019 and 2023) explains, among other things, the role of our immune system together with our microbiome or our 'external organ'. We now know more and more how great the role and impact of our microbes is in and on our body and therefore also on our skin. And what is the role of medications that are sometimes taken for a long time and a lot? Package leaflets of medicines provide insight into the influence they have on our body, such as common side effects such as rash, headache, muscle complaints, fatigue, digestive complaints, intestinal complaints, etc.
When the skin and/or intestines (guts) are mentioned, alarm bells ring for me. especially when a client of mine takes such medications and comes to me with a skin complaint. That is why I always advise my clients with skin complaints to examine their medication based on those leaflets, or we will look at it together. I have been doing it that way for many years, and with success. Because it often happens that their skin complaints are 'coincidentally' also mentioned in those leaflets. Have we immediately found the cause like 'Sherlock Holmes'? Unfortunately, it is not always that easy, according to my other mental advisor 'Doctor Watson'. It does make it clear that medication, even 'so-called harmless' such as paracetamol (including itching, rash, purpura, urticaria), 'the pill' (including acne) or a Mirena IUD (acne, itching, rash, hyperpigmentation, etc.) can cause skin problems. We also know that antibiotics affect our healthy microbiome, not just pathogenic bacteria. What is unfortunately too often forgotten is that antibiotics not only kill or inhibit pathogens, but also healthy bacteria. This means that our resistance is affected by this medicine, unless we simultaneously work on restoring our healthy microbiome. And the latter is rarely applied in regular medicine. Worrying in my opinion... because 'it's all about balance!'.
Sometimes gems of research come along that explain what medication can do to our precious microbiome. The UMCG and UMC Maastricht (10-2019) found in a joint study that 'half of all commonly prescribed medications, including antibiotics and laxatives, have a major changing impact on our intestinal flora' or intestinal microbiome. And this medicinal effect is seen in conditions such as obesity, diabetes, liver diseases, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. For me, this research is confirmation of what I already knew. And yet another reason to continue to draw attention to the influence of our intestines and our microbiome in the 'skin-intestinal connection' and the importance of returning to and maintaining a healthy microbiome. "It's all about balance...!"
Here is the link to the research by UMCG and UMCM (10-2019): https://www.mednet.nl/congres-nieuws/helft-van-alle-veelused-medicatie-heeft-grote-impact-op-darmflora/
Do you perhaps also have chronic skin complaints and would you like to know more about them? Or are you a therapist/doctor and do you see many clients with skin and/or intestinal problems? My fully scientifically substantiated Dutch books can be ordered via my website www.huid-darm.nl. The English version of my second book will be available in the fall of 2024 and can be ordered via the bookshop www.skin-gut-axis.com.
P.S. Would you like to share my blog in your network, so that other people with skin problems can also learn from it? You can do this very easily by clicking on one of the buttons below. Many thanks for this! "Healthy skin from the outside and from the inside!"
Marcelline Goyen
Skin therapist BHS & Intestinal therapist
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