Dr Amir Khan

If you don't need them, don't take them.

But the other thing I would say, if you are on antibiotics and you want to try and maintain your gut health while you're on them as best you can, eat fermented food, eat yogurt, eat lots of variety of plants, because...

Not only do you need to feed the gut bacteria that are already there to try and keep them from dying off, but you need to replace them.

And fermented food and live yogurts with bacteria in help replace those microbes that you've lost through the antibiotics.

OK, so if you are on antibiotics and you need them, then you want to try and replace some of the good bacteria that you're killing each time you take one of those tablets.

And that's the truth of it.

So things like fermented foods, kefir, kimchi, all of those things contain good bacteria that can reseed your gut.

Yogurt, live, authentic Greek yogurt.

I always say authentic Greek yogurt, not Greek-styled yogurt.

That's not the same thing that will replace these bacteria.

And I do try and say that to my patients where I can because fermented food is often not part of everybody's diet.

And then, you know, drinking plenty of water as well.

Great for your gut microbiome.

We always forget that.

Sleeping and moving are all good for the gut microbiome.

How long does it take?

It all depends on the type of antibiotic you're on.

If you're on a narrow range antibiotic like for UTIs or chest infections, you're probably looking at three or four weeks.

Broad spectrum, it can take months for it to get better.

Some people never recover with these long term broad spectrum antibiotics.