Corticosteroids can aid recovery from pneumonia
People suffering from pneumonia can recover with a combination of corticosteroids and traditional microbial therapy at a faster pace than with antibiotics alone, as per a study by scientists from the UT Southwestern Medical Center.
It is worth noting here that unlike the anabolic steroids that are generally used to add muscles, corticosteroids are primarily used to treat inflammation related to infectious diseases.
From News-Medical.Net:
“Some people might think that if you give steroids, it would counteract the effect of the antibiotic,” said Dr. Robert Hardy, associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics and the study’s senior author. “But it turns out you need the antibiotic to kill the bug and the steroid to make the inflammation in the lung from the infection get better. The steroids don’t kill the bugs, but they do help restore health.”
Pneumonia is a lung infection typically characterized by breathing difficulties and spread by coughing and sneezing. Symptoms include headache, fever, chills, coughs, chest pain, sore throat and nausea. Pneumonia caused by the Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacterium is generally a less severe form of the disease that can occur in any age group. It accounts for 20 percent to 30 percent of all community-acquired pneumonia cases.
It was remarked by Dr. Hardy that the group receiving both the steroids and antibiotics did the best.
Other researchers from the UT Southwestern included Dr. Christine Salvatore, infectious-disease fellow in pediatrics; Dr. Chonnamet Techasaensiri, postdoctoral trainee in pediatrics; Dr. Asunción Mejías, assistant professor of pediatrics; Dr. Juan Torres, visiting senior researcher in pediatrics; Kathy Katz, senior research associate in pediatrics; and Dr. Ana Maria Gomez, assistant professor of pathology. Some researchers from the University of Milan also contributed to this study.
Tags: anabolic steroids, antibiotics, corticosteroids, pneumonia, Steroids, traditional antimicrobial therapy
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