Potential Cure For Antibiotic Resistant Infections 127
kpw10 writes to let us know about research to be published this week that offers hope in the battle against multi-drug-resistant bacteria. "Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that two drugs used to treat bone loss in old folks can both kill and short-circuit the 'sex life' of antibiotic-resistant bacteria blamed for nearly 100,000 hospital deaths across the country each year."
Okay, I'll bite ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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At the very least, I would not be surprised if the constantly mutating virus is actually opening itself up to new attack vectors that we just haven't found yet.
Bacteria != viruses (Score:5, Informative)
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Of course, antibiotics also kill useful bacteria (e.g. those that help you to digest milk and salad), so antibiotics are not really a good idea against a common cold.
Re:Bacteria != viruses (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? That's not even wrong. There is no reason to use antibiotics in a viral infection. Period. Now, there are a couple of real life caveats to this: Firstly, viral infections can alter host defenses (usually by trashing the lining of the respiratory system - essentially making holes in it - which allow bacteria to invade. The classic case is Haemophilus Influenza pneumonia that occurs after an influenza infection. Secondly and more commonly, a doctor may not know if the infection is viral or bacterial and antibiotics are often (likely too often) added empirically.
But bacteria "don't keep the immune system busy".
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Granted that strain would have to be NOT exposed to the antibiotic for a long enough timeframe for it to lose it's resistance (enough time for the mutations that don't have the resistance to become the majority).
This is probably a high estimate, but I would imagine that if you banned penicillin for 200 years or so, you would wind up finding that the strains that were r
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We must ban gay bacterial marriages right away!
You missed the obvious (Score:2)
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Re:You missed the obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
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An analogy might be something like VX nerve gas and human evolution. We might some day evolve so that VX nerve gas won't affect our nervous systems, but it won't be throu
Another Direction (Score:2, Funny)
Hang on there! This logic of combinations of drugs and such has been tried for a long time. The results always rapidly decline in value. Even if this combination works for now, it will fail in a short period of time.
There is a better way! the USA Laser [usalaser.biz] guys have a tool that could best be described as the Atom Bomb of medicine. It is a very simple system that exposes a person to an intense short duration flash from an IR laser. This device does several wonderful things. The first is that it essentia
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You obviously don't know what you are talking about. I have seen this device work with real people. I have seen it cause regrowth of skin on patients with IDDM on large wounds which would not have healed. I have seen Muli-drug resistant infections succumb to this laser in minutes when they had not responded to antibiotics in months of intense monitored IV therapy. I have no commercial attachment to this company and I am only reporting what is fact. I have seen this device clear myself of a pneumonia i
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Not true. VX gas in small enough doses doesn't kill. Let's assume a doomsday scenario where the evil robots in the future use VX gas to keep humans away. More or less the entire planet is routinely "clea
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Life will find a way to survive.
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Not really that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Drug resistant bacteria aren't as much caused by taking too many antibiotics, but by taking too little of an antibiotic. People take the antibiotic for 2-3 days, then they feel better, and figure out "why bother taking the rest?" Or they take an antibiotic, it makes them feel worse, skip the rest of the treatment because they know better than the doctor. Etc.
Problem is, they have a shitload of bacteria left at that point.
Will someone decide to skip their bone loss drugs too? Probably, but I'd assume somewhat fewer.
2. The fact that it's already widely used to treat bone loss, should probably tell us that if it was that easy to develop resistance to it, it would have happened already. Not saying it's impossible to, but it might just take a lot more time.
3. The relatively fast development of resistance is massively aided by the fact that bacteria can exchange genes. (Hence the jab about inhibiting their sex life.) So basically once one develops resistance, it can pass that around.
Something that attacks that very mechanism, might slow down the rate of developing and spreading resistance a lot.
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However, aren't most of the 'expensive' drugs the ones that are more cosmetic? Things like Viagra, or the sleeping meds, or anti-allergy types?
I have always thought that the antibiotic type drugs were relatively inexpensive. Am I off on this assumption?
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But you need backbone, and when you're sick... well, you generally don't have the energy to argue with the doctor.
Re:Not really that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
That's part of the problem, the bigger problem is that there are too many antibiotics being used for essentially superfluous indications such as when used in cattle feed and for clearly viral infections. In fact, the data on exactly how long one should be on antibiotics for a given infection is pretty sparse. Remember that the host immune system is playing an active role in clearing the infection - it's not just the antibiotic, and once you gain the upper hand, it's bye-bye bug.
Now this is interesting because you're correct - At least one of the drugs has been marketed for several years. If they prevented antibiotic resistance, it should be possible to see this given enough patients and time. The problem is that we don't have any way to really track this on a grand scale. It may be possible for organizations like Kaiser Permanente, who can track drug use and outcome data, to see this. It may also be the case that this is yet another Test Tube Marvel that has little applicability to the real world.
As far as I can tell from the terribly written summary, that's what the drugs do - prevent plasmid reproduction. The problem here is that there are several mechanisms for plasmid / gene transfer among the various species of bacteria. There may be mechanisms that are not susceptible to these drugs.
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1. It gives it more time to exchange genes with the other 500 million bacteria.
2. Because the immune system also has a lot more other targets and might miss it long enough to get coughed/sneezed/whatever out.
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2. The fact that it's already widely used to treat bone loss, should probably tell us that if it was that easy to develop resistance to it, it would have happened already. Not saying it's impossible to, but it might just take a lot more time.
Or it simply suggests that normal flora bacteria found in everyone have already developed resistance... Everyone has bacteria that should be there as part of a healthy system. It's just not noticed since it's not detrimental. If the normal flora have developed resistance then there is nothing to prevent other bacteria from doing so as well. And just a bit of clarification: Resistance doesn't really happen as a result of treatment. Resistant or partially resistant bacteria exist at the point treatment
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No problem... (Score:2)
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The microbes, or the patients?
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But that would imply that these organisms evolve. That's impossible! [ucomics.com]
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Existing drugs are GOOD things (Score:2, Interesting)
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In other news, Viagra has been shown to reduce bone lose in old men.
No comment,
OwenDMoney
Why use Drugs? (Score:5, Funny)
Um, doesn't marriage do the same thing?
Just asking, because it would certainly save a lot of money if we just get these bacteria to marry.
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Yes, but they'd have to marry in a state which didn't require a blood test.
Re:Why use Drugs? (Score:5, Funny)
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Next you'll be pushing your agenda with books like "Johnny has Streptococcal Pharyngitis For a Daddy". For shame.
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Viagra and Cialis are antibiotic?
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You've obviously never paid for a wedding.
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No, my father in law did.
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short term solution (Score:2)
Re:short term solution (Score:5, Informative)
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Anyway, I know there are multiple paths for drug resistance.
Generally speaking, antibiotics target a specific enzyme or pathway. Take penicillin: it inhibits an enzyme used in linking sugars used in building the cell wall. To evade this, some bacteria make beta-lactamases, enzymes that specifically attack and break down penicillin, while other bacteria just massively overproduce the
Find some new bait. (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe scientists could find some other critter that the bugs like better, like cockroaches or the small dogs that live in women's purses.
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Great... (Score:2)
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For a change, this is actually interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong - we need to know the doses, the regimen, the side effects at antimicrobial dosing, and all the rest of the nuts-and-bolts pharmacology. On the other hand, the putative mechanism, which is to interfere with sharing of genes between bacteria, is in itself ground-breaking. Used properly (that is, not overused and used with care), this could prevent rapid resistance emergence in bacteria where the treatment itself takes weeks to months (osteomyelitis, for example, or infection with certain stubborn bugs). These drugs (etidronate and pamidronate) have their own not-insignificant side effect profile, of course, and there are no guarantees at this stage.
I'll be interested in the actual research, because TFA is filtered through a layer of ignorance and sensationalism, but it sounds interesting.
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Which means it is in no way different from the bulk of Slashdot submissions.
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Maybe in America where everything needs a script (800mg ibuprofen.. come on) but not in other countries where you can buy antibiotics in a super saver 500 pill bottle. I believe this is how the problem started in the first place.
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Re:For a change, this is actually interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
Let the bacteria read slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
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Unnatural Selection (Score:2)
Re:Unnatural Selection (Score:5, Interesting)
Patients are part of the problem too, since there is a tendency (cultural in some cases, personal in others) to demand that a doctor "do something" to fix the problem. Antibiotics were perceived for a long time as something harmless to give in those circumstances, but that perception is fading fast. If anything, the trend now is to err on the side of letting things play out a little more to see if antibiotic therapy is really needed.
This has also caused physicians to have to explain the situation better. I know for myself that when I am explaining to a suspicious parent the reason that I'm not going to give their child an antibiotic for their viral infection, I don't waste a lot of time explaining resistance. If they already understand resistance, they're not asking for antibiotics. If they don't, it just sounds like I'm making things up. I focus instead on side effects and cost, and my typical (true) statement is "about all I can do with antibiotics would be to give your child diarrhea to go with her cold." This is surprisingly effective, especially in the parents of non-potty-trained toddlers.
None of which stops me from pulling out the stops when I'm faced with a septic kid or a real infection that needs to be nuked. In those cases, though, I'm very careful to make sure that the regimen I use is appropriate, considering the resistance patterns and the risk of making them worse.
Now if we could only get the idiots who lace animal feed with antibiotics to do the same. Ever wonder where resistant strains start? Hint: it ain't just in the hospitals.
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I didn't used to understand this well, thinking that basically you're still going to leave some bacteria alive, and they're going to be the most-uber-resistant bacteria of them all. But someone pointed out what may be obvious, which is that after the full regiment there are going
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But someone pointed out what may be obvious, which is that after the full regiment there are going to be few enough of these bacteria left that the human immune system can finish the job of wiping them out completely, leaving no antibiotic-resistant bacteria at all. Is this accurate?
In essence, yes. In fact, people who have immune deficiencies are particularly likely to develop resistant bugs, and we suspect that at least part of the problem is that the immune system can't quite finish the job.
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Sure, your body is kicking bacterial ass, but that last cough or sneeze that they manage to wring out of you could spew a few lucky winners into a coworkers face, and the cycle starts again, but with a slightly more resistant strain.
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Mexico? My mother in law works at a farm that produces fruit with a lot of immagrant worker.. they routinely go back to Mexico to see family and pick her up Antibiotics because she likes to pop a few when she has a cold (yes a few, yes a cold).
I had her get me some because i regularly get bronchitis (I smoke) and when it gets infected it's hard to get doctors to prescribe antibiotics. she brought me a bottle of 500 tablets. N
Re:Unnatural Selection (Score:4, Interesting)
This gets me into the whole doctor-as-gatekeeper-for-pills thing that drives me nuts. I challenge colleagues once in a while: in an environment where all medications were available at retail, could they still justify their fees? Could they market themselves well enough to avoid starvation? I think I could, because of the kind of medicine I practice (and because I can sometimes go a dozen patients between giving a prescription), but it's definitely something honest physicians should be asking themselves.
In the no-Rx-required environment, though, there's no question that resistance emerges rapidly. Fortunately, the antibiotics available in Mexico are a small subset of the ones we use here, and most of the ones that patients can buy OTC have broad therapeutic indices (overdose doesn't hurt you much) and are from antibiotic classes (penicillins, macrolides) where we have later-generation alternatives that avoid the common resistances. It's a fluid situation, though, and one that has infectious disease specialists always a little on edge.
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http://www.fluoroquinolones.org/ [fluoroquinolones.org]
http://www.antibiotics.org/ [antibiotics.org]
And pass this knowledge along. I, along with many many other people, have to live in pain now because of this.
Re:Unnatural Selection (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't know where you get your stats from, but antibiotic-resistant pathogens [wikipedia.org] are a serious health threat. Unless there is specific evidence that resistance mechanisms offer significant disadvantages to competing with sensitive strains, then it's pretty clear that the resistance to a lethal environmental element is an advantage, and that the resistant strain will eventua
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Before even penicillin, there were the miraculous sulfa drugs, which block a bacteria's ability to make folic acid: bacteria learned to uptake folate just as we do.
Beta-lactams like penicillin prevent bacteria from making peptidoglycan, the material of their cell walls: bacteria came up with beta-lactamase to break it down.
Better b
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Where do they get the drugs from? (Score:1)
Don't trivialise this (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully this won't be used promiscuously, and I hope they'll work out the interactions with other treatments, as quite often treatment is multi-modal.
I wouldn't wish what I go through due to MRSA on anyone (except my stepfather, but that's another story altogether.
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natural selection (Score:2)
100K deaths (Score:2, Insightful)
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You know there's something wrong with democracy when people start addressing their elected representative as them like if they were of another species or something.
Cue to Douglas Adams lizard quote I guess
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Go ahead - laugh it up (Score:4, Informative)
Starts out like an ingrown hair or pimple. Might even be a spider bite. Then it gets angry. Take a large marble...light it on fire and have it surgically planted underneath, say, two layers of skin. Day three and the redness is now inches in diameter and the bump is still growing and...damn! It hurts! Burns like hell! Pimple my ass! Get that thing out of there! You can't sleep from the pain and you find yourself wondering which would be the better method to dig it out: kitchen cutlery or claw-hammer. In any case, if you don't have a doctor lance it, you're going to have to do it yourself.
Day four and it is open, draining and talk about cheese!! The stuff draining from the now open wound is so toxic, it blisters the surrounding skin. Makes it a bit difficult to remember to trash your clothes, bedsheets, etc., but at least the burning has lessened...a bit.
Ten or twelve days later, after finally getting on an anti-biotic (tetracycline?) that can put up a fight, the fluid draining out is almost stopped, the redness is almost gone and a bit of scar tissue is starting to form. Good news is, now that you know the routine, you can put up a slightly better fight next time - and there will be a next time...unless you died from this incident, of course. You did wash your hands before you helped your kids get dressed this morning, right...?
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try bacteriophage therapy -- from Russia with love (Score:2)
"Phage Therapy: where communism succeeded and capitalism failed. Western capitalism has another kind of correctness that can be at least as disabling; a correctness based on profit, and an unwillingness to check the growth of an industry that is too lucrative to too many people. The story of antibiotics is becoming one of those stories. An elementary application of Evolution 101 tells us that bacteria evolve. In an antibiotic-rich environment, selective pressu
100000 country wide (Score:1)
Hurry! Get this medicine to Andorra [wikipedia.org] before it's too late!
And they figured this out how? (Score:2)
barely survived MRSA (Score:1)
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OP is referring to cause of death, not location at time of death. Far more than 250,000 people die in hospitals each year.
It is fact that some avoidable deaths are caused by healthcare practitioners, though efforts are made to minimize this. Unfortunately, the US does pretty poorly in this regard, in comparison to other nations with "1st world" healthcare systems.
I don't agree with the OP that doctors are to be avoided
Yeow! (Score:2)
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The problem with your idea is that the infection is usually internal. If you have a plan for getting the Lysol into your body, please don't hesitate to not tell me.
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It should. White willow bark is basically identical to aspirin, except that it has crappy quality control and inconsistent dosing, and costs a lot more.
Astragalus and Oscillicoxinum for flu and colds, as well as various homeopathics.
You forgot "witchcraft" and "UFOs", as long as we're on the subject of things that have no legitimate medical application.