Written and medically reviewed by Dr. Dan Wool, NMD

Arizona-licensed Naturopathic Physician and Gastroenterology Specialist

Originally published: June 18, 2024

Updated: October 31, 2026


Antibiotics and gut health


[video transcript]  Antibiotics are amazing. They're miracle drugs, actually. All the diseases we used to get prior to the 19th century have been eradicated by this form of modern medicine. But because of that and all those good intentions, now antibiotics do too much, and we can get resistance or we can get conditions where doctors think that antibiotics can be used safely for months or years.


So what does that do to the gut?


Your Gut as a Garden: The "Mower" Effect of Antibiotics


Well, imagine this like a garden. Let's say that your box garden has a variety of different vegetables in it, ranging from sunflowers or corn, which are tall, to very small lettuces, right? It's a very diverse system. Oftentimes, things work together like peas and carrots; they help each other grow. And this is kind of the cooperation and balance that you get in your microflora.


So when you take antibiotics to get rid of, say, an infection or help you with a cold, what ends up happening is it's like taking a mower to that garden. Now you're getting that pathogen that's causing the cold, but you're also mowing down that diversity in the gut. And sometimes when you do that, let's say mowing it down to the level of the lettuce, you've got some tall weeds that used to be short weeds, right? And they start to exert themselves. They're getting sunlight and nutrients that they've never had before. The same thing happens in your gut, and they get out of balance, and that causes what's called a dysbiosis.


So oftentimes when people are on antibiotics, they'll start getting symptoms like diarrhea, even constipation.


Restoring Gut Balance: The Power of Probiotics


So what do we do? We need these antibiotics to help us get through a disease situation and not make things worse. But if they're also having this effect, how do we make it better?


Well, what you can do is take a probiotic. Now, you don't want to take it exactly with the antibiotics. These things can negate each other, but if you separate that probiotic dose from your antibiotic, say two to three hours after you take those antibiotics, it can help replete that flora that got mowed down by the antibiotic. And that way, when you get to the end of your course, you can expect that things will be more or less in balance as opposed to having a little bit of an imbalance that the body's got to spend a lot of energy to remake.


Need Help with Your Gut Health?


If you're having GI issues or been on antibiotics for a real long time and need some solutions for your gut, set up a free 15-minute discovery call with me. No one ever leaves that call without a little bit of direction. You can also find out some more information on our website. It's drdanwool.com. See you next time.



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