Older Adults and Antibiotics: Study Shows Healthy Attitudes but Unhealthy Practices

While most adults over 50 understand that overuse of antibiotics is a problem, and say they're cautious about taking the drugs, a sizable minority have used antibiotics for something other than their original purpose, and appear to think the drugs could help treat colds, which are caused by viruses not bacteria. These findings, contained in a new paper in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, come from a national poll of people between the ages of 50 and 80 carried out as part of the National Poll on Healthy Aging. CBSSM's Jeffrey Kullgren was the article's senior author.