Recent studies have revealed the facts related to antibiotic and unnecessary drug use. According to these studies, due to antibiotic resistance, 40 million people may lose their lives within 25 years. Antibiotics commonly prescribed when you visit a doctor are quite successful at rapidly killing all bacteria in the body. However, unnecessary drug and antibiotic use may be more harmful to your body than you think. Researchers have found that between 1900 and 2021, more than a million people died each year from drug-resistant infections. According to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet, this situation is expected to kill 40 million people in a relatively short period of 25 years. Bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria evolve to survive drugs that were once deadly to them. This means that common diseases like pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and diarrhea can become more lethal. Experts explained that a growing number of bacteria species are becoming resistant due to the widespread use of antibiotics. The team also added that if new antibiotics are developed against the most problematic bacteria, 11 million deaths could be prevented by 2050. The authors of the study predict about a 70% increase in deaths due to antimicrobial resistance from 2022 to 2050. The highest-risk group for increased death rate is the elderly. This type of resistance, also known as AMR, occurs when microbes such as bacteria and fungi evolve to make it more difficult to kill them with existing drugs. Christopher J. L. Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at Washington University and senior author of the study, said, “This is a huge problem and it will be enduring.” Researchers have identified antimicrobial resistance as a public health concern for decades, but this study, conducted by a large research team as part of the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Research Project, is a first in analyzing AMR trends worldwide and over time. Ishani Ganguli, a primary care doctor and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is another figure emphasizing the need to avoid prescribing antibiotics when not needed. Ganguli details the situation as follows: If there’s a disconnect and your patient really wants an antibiotic… and I don’t think it will help them in this case, I would explain that the antibiotic could cause side effects like diarrhea and fungal infections.