Can you drink sodas while taking antibiotics?

Question

Can you drink sodas while taking antibiotics?

Answer 1

yes

Answer 2

Antibiotics are sometimes complex chemical structures and you have two things to consider when ingesting them orally:

1) Does what you eat or drink with them contain chemicals themselves that can modify or alter (i.e., react) with the antibiotic and render it ineffective?  Can it create a product not only ineffective, but even toxic?

2) Although nothing in what you eat or drink (such as soda or soft drinks) will react, can it affect the absorption of the antibiotic from the gut (being stomach or intestine) into the body?

It would be unusual for the antibiotic to react with any substance in your soda or soft drink to render it ineffective or even toxic, so we probably do not need to consider point 1 seriously.

However for point 2, all drugs---not just antibiotics---are affected by the presence of other things that we may ingest with them.  The thing effected is absorption:  the movement of the drug/antibiotic from the gut into the blood if that is the purpose  (a few antibiotics are actually intended to work in the gut and not cross into blood at all, but that is rare).  The intended site of absorption might be the stomach, and more often it is the small intestine.  If absorption is through the stomach, and you drink a soda or soft drink or eat a huge meal (particularly a fatty one that slows down digestion!), you can alter the chemical environment of the stomach (its pH, for one) and reduce the ability of the drug to cross into the blood.

Directions for the use of a drug or antibiotic include how to ingest it orally.  It may stress that you should not take it with food or other type of drink except water, or it may tell you to take it with a meal, and that the meal itself not contain a high amount of fat.  It may tell you to take it before a meal.  This is very important so that you can maximally absorb the drug.  If you are ever in doubt, take the drug before any mean and with water.  This usually promotes the maximum and rapid absorption of most drugs.  And if you take multiple drugs, perhaps once a day, try to space them out by at least 30 minutes, unless you have asked your doctor whether there are any drug interactions in this way.

One more thing:  in order to stop the build-up of antibiotic resistance, your doctor tells you to take them usually for a 5-, 7-, or 10-day period.  Always do this, even when you think you are cured.  Finish the program!  If you don't, you are likely to create a subset of infectious organisms that will have antibiotic resistance.

Answer 3

Yes.  It will not do a thing to you.

Answer 4

No you shouldn't