Beer Forum

Sorry to dork out but I was just listening to the most recent show and thought I could shed some light. Basically alcohol can increase the breakdown of some antibiotics and make them less effective.

To be super dorky: alcohol induces cytochrome p450, which would increase metabolism of drugs in the liver. While the drug that J would have gotten in the hospital would have been fine (vancomycin), what I would guess he is on now (linezolid/zyvox) might be a problem.

hopefully someone cares or finds it interesting...

Thanks for the info Donkalicious!

Luckily, I was not too inclined to drink anyway so just had a couple beers on Sunday, which was very near the end of my meds (zyvox) anyway. Took the last pill today so back on the horse soon enough.

Thanks for chiming in and shedding light though brotha!

J

I had the same infection as J a couple months ago. Mine didn't spread beyond my thumb and I had it lanced and cleaned at my doctors office. Still insanely painful. Vicodin was the only way to take the edge off.

Any way on to the topic. I specifically asked my doctor about alcohol and antibiotics because this happened at the same time as Learn to Homebrew Day. He told me that most of those warnings are BS. Alcohol very rarely interacts in any meaningful way with pharmeceuticals.

I heard an old wives tale that no alcohol with antibiotics stems from ye olde English tymes when sailors would catch infection from loose women. The doctor feared that by drinking and winding up in the wrong places again, his patients would get another dose, before the drugs had worked all their magic.

The myth is that it reduces the effectiveness of the AB. But there are some, specifically one of the ones that is used to treat MRSA, with which the combination with alcohol is not particularly good for the old liver.

People like to make blanket statements regarding this issue, but there are some antibiotics that won't be affected by alcohol consumption. It depends on the medicine. Some people don't get that part.

I do not think you will find many physicians making blanket statement about something so complicated as the human body. Yes, most likely having a couple beers while on Abx will be fine as far as their ability to fight infection, but some like flagyl will make you sick via disulfram effects and as stated others could jack up your liver.

Really this can be best summed up by Dr. White: "It depends."

We need to get the recipe for the ancient brew that contained tetracycline. It was on the History channel the other day. Once again, beer saving the world!