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New Superbug Weapon to Replace Failing Antibiotics
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers in British Columbia have identified a peptide that can fight infection by boosting the immune system. Because antibiotics are under threat due to an explosion of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, this may be just in time."
I won't take it unless it comes with mint frosting.
I, for one, hope it doesn't work. I have a lot of shotgun shells and canned foods that will go to waste if my prediction of bacteria wiping out the human race doesn't come true.
I don't respond to AC's.
Let's inject it into all our livestock.
We are all just people.
Why do I have a hard time trusting a source like "curedeath.com"?
Yeah, the mangled title warps the entire premise, which is that there is a new weapon against superbugs that doesn't involve creating more super-antibiotics to fight the super bugs (which of course will just eventually lead to a massive super bug some day that will kill you before you can treat it since everyone is a big baby and rushes out to get antibiotics at the first sniffle).
Maybe if we didn't prescribe an antibiotic for everything that can ever go wrong with a person, there wouldn't be so many resistant strains.
Sniffles? Take an antibiotic.
This is a representation of some very adept work by researchers at Inimex and some well spent funding by CIHR.
The human body has seven systems: muscoskeletal, reproductive, skin, cardiopulmonary, nervous, digestive, and immune. Many of the ailments which people experience--cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders, prion diseases, leukemia, infections--invade tissues of the six other systems but are ultimately traceable as a deficiency in their own immune system. The immune system is trained as the maintenance arm of the body. When cells become cancerous the immune system is trained to find and remove them. When viruses and bacteria enter the body the immune system is trained to kill them. When plaques build up in the body the immune system is trained to remove them. When cells are starving, or asphyxiated, or agitated it is the immune system which is responsible for transmitting the proper signals systemwide and stimulating other tissues to produce the materials necessary to fix the problem.
The devoted study of immunology, of which the language which cells use to communicate with each other is central, has been pushed aside for many years by the larger, more established, more prestigious research groups both in academia and in the industry. When I worked at Abbott Laboratories, starting in '99, I found that their immunology department had recently been all but terminated in favor of shuffling the money to the devoted disease areas. While treating the diseases as separate from the body has led to some novel treatments (eg. antiangionesis and apoptosis for cancer) it seemed, to me, that a whole boatload of data which pointed to the potential cures available within the body itself were being ignored--not because they lacked scientific merit--but because the social structures within the company (and the industry) were attached to the research paths which were easier for the marketers and PR releases to handle.
To some extent that's the way things must work. The venture capitalists and investors need to know where their money is going or else they aren't going to contribute. That's a sad state of society, though, when one group's ignorance is stifling another group's innovation.
The study of immunology has quite a bit of potential for worldwide medicine. ImClone managed to open the popular path with its approach of monoclonal antibodies, though that segment was somewhat sabotaged by the insider trading scandal. Let's hope that companies like Inimex, and hopefully some companies in the US, will begin to devote greater resources to understanding how the body naturally works and working with it. Many of the detrimental side effects of today's pharmaceuticals are directly related to the immune system's response to those molecules being introduced into the body. The industry has really created its own problem of side effects by buckling in to the demands of the financiers and not holding to the strict scientific principles.
Even though they're in Vancouver I sent a resume.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The end result is that a person's immune system no longer has to do it's job, job gets done for it. The immune system becoems weaker, they get sick more, then get more anti-biotics.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
Immune system just doesn't work well for fighting off certain bacteria, such as tuberculosis and antharax. Also, a lot of hospital infections happen to elderly, AIDS patients and otherwise people with weak immune system. Even with a booster, it would be better to develop substances that kill bacteria directly.
We show that an innate defense-regulator peptide (IDR-1) was protective in mouse models of infection with important Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. When given from 48 h before to 6 h after infection, the peptide was effective by both local and systemic administration. Because protection by IDR-1 was prevented by in vivo depletion of monocytes and macrophages, but not neutrophils or B- and T-lymphocytes, we conclude that monocytes and macrophages are key effector cells. IDR-1 was not directly antimicrobial: gene and protein expression analysis in human and mouse monocytes and macrophages indicated that IDR-1, acting through mitogen-activated protein kinase and other signaling pathways, enhanced the levels of monocyte chemokines while reducing pro-inflammatory cytokine responses. To our knowledge, an innate defense regulator that counters infection by selective modulation of innate immunity without obvious toxicities has not been reported previously.
We need to develop a new, superstrong antibiotic called Placebocillin. If that doesn't work, we can always try intravenous Cephplacebo.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The article is a link to a spam blog. The original content is in this press release, which was copied without attribution. The original source and contact information were removed, six ads were added, and a false claim of copyright was made.
The people behind this are Web Doodle LLC of Missoula, MT, run (as of 2002) by Branden Long. They have other similar spam blogs.
Actually, there has never ever ever ever been any causal link between antibiotic prescriptions for personal, in-home use and the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Given the number of studies by people trying to scare people away from antibioitics, it is likely that such a link simply does not exist, as it would likely have been found by now if it did.
Antibiotic resistance develops as a direct result of hospital use of antibiotics. Unfortunately, hospital use usually equates with life-threatening. The reason that resistant strains take hold in hospitals is that you have a higher concentration of sick people breathing the same air, using some of the same shared facilities, etc. with doctors and nurses moving from patient to patient. As much as they try to minimize the spread of illness among patients, it still occurs, and unlike in your home, the people in the hospital are often already sick or in poor health, and are thus more susceptible to bacteria that (barely) survived a round of antibiotics.
By contrast, letting yourself "wait a few days while you get better" from bacterial infections has been linked to numerous diseases, including several varieties of arthritis, rheumatic fever, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and even heart damage. Waiting it out is absolutely the worst thing you can do.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This is a very speculative and pretty dodgy article. Firstly, it's not a new concept (being healthy is the best tool for stopping infection before it starts, and, secondary to this, immunization, sanitation and quarantine).
Secondly, drugs already exist which are used in severe sepsis to boost the immune system. These drugs are very dangerous and expensive and when used inappropriately cause as many deaths as they save lives.
While it is true that antibiotic use is excessive, the situation we have is that the people who are getting the MRSA and VRE and other 'superbug' infections are frequently already immune compromised and, in whole body infection, invariably die without antibiotics - nothing else is proven to work without them.
Also, it's a peptide. You can't take it as a tablet - it's not going to be on the shelves of your supermarket - and if it is, better off eating a hard boiled egg! If anything, it will be a small scale intravenous drug for use in intensive care units, usually when all else fails, just like all these other 'breakthrough' solutions.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
a massive super bug some day that will kill you before you can treat it
Except that antibiotic-resistant strains are generally less virulent than the old-fashioned kind. It doesn't mean they can't kill you, of course -- obviously they do kill people, all the time -- but most of their victims are already immunocompromised in some way (the very old, the very young, AIDS patients, chemotherapy patients, etc.) Generating the enzymes necessary for antibiotic resistance, such as penicillinase, represents a pretty significant metabolic load for the cell; every bit of energy it has to spend protecting itself from antibiotics is a bit it doesn't have available to spend on reproduction.
I'm not trying to downplay the danger of antibiotic-resistant bacteria here, only pointing out that "superbug" is a relative term; just because they're tougher in one way doesn't mean they're tougher in all ways. For bacteria as for every other living thing, fitness is relative to environment.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
'Scuse the possibly stupid question, since IANA(M)BOD (biologist/microbiologist or doctor), but what about the potential for damage to your own body as a result of a temporarily ramped up immune system?
As I understand, this peptide temporarily boosts the immune system, which then is better able to fight off the invading organism. However, there are a number of medical conditions caused by an immune system that's a little too heightened--allergies for example, or a number of other, more serious conditions. When I was 21, I contracted "Rapidly Progressive Glomerulonephritis" which is a condition where the immune system attacks the nodules in your kidneys that filter your blood. I now have a kidney transplant as a result. Lupus, I believe, is another serious condition resulting from an overactive immune system.
If we start prescribing this peptide the way we currently prescribe antibiotics, what are the chances that more than the patient's immune system will attack more than just the intended target? Also, what if, like me, you have an intentionally weakened immune system (to prevent transplant rejection), when you take this peptide? Will you be at greater risk to reject the transplant, since the transplanted organ is a foreign body?
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
My mother was a nurse trained in the 40's. Since this was before major antibiotic use, significant training was about sanitation control. No wrist watches (since you might not wash), how to change bed sheets (to minimize airborne dust), and proper washing.
Now we have keyboards, remote controls, and all kinds of stuff that can't be cleaned. She died from an infection carried by improperly sterilized diagnostic equipment.
Today, hospital care seems to be more about pushing pills and foregoing the basics so it's no wonder we have resistant bugs.
Actually, there has never ever ever ever been any causal link between antibiotic prescriptions for personal, in-home use and the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.
Funny, these guys seem to disagree with you. Specifically: "Clinical misuse of antibiotics may be more common among private practitioners than among public health personnel--private practitioners charge higher fees, the demand for antibiotics seen in private patients is higher, and more drugs are available in private clinics than in public hospitals "
Oh look, so do these guys. My search returned over 100 hits and it's really not my job to educate you, so I won't go on. But there IS a causal link. Ask any infectious disease specialist and s/he will cite a lot more articles for you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
As a few other people pointed out, a boosted immune system isn't a good thing. A Healthy immune system is. No, I'm not a bioligist, Doctor, Immunologist, Rheumatologist, or Endocrinologist... but I have one of each in my contact list (Ok... so the Biologist is a friend who gave it up for Software engineering.... but I do have the others).
A heightened immune system causes Psoriasis, Psoriatic Arthritis, Osteo Arthritis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Allergies, Graves Syndrome, Crohn's Disease, and a whole host of things that range from unpleasant (allergies and Osteo Arthritis) to seriously painful (Psoriatic Arthritis) to life threatening (Crohn's and very severe psoriasis). I live it every day. It's ranging from my major discomfort with the current 5000+ pollen count on my business trip to Atlanta (where I'm sitting now) where Zyrtec is barely effective, to my Psoriasis (which gets worse when my immune system gets excitied like it is with my allergies pumped up) that leaves me with large raw bloody areas that pass for skin. Yeah... I know... you really wanted to read that while you ate dinner... welcome to my life.
Trust me... DON'T overactivate your immune system.... live well, take antibiotics only when you HAVE to and for as long as you have to, and enjoy a normal and healthy immune system.
First wrong statement: Overprescription of antibiotics for (presumably viral) ear infections has been strongly linked to various strains of drug resistant streptoocci and staphylococci.
This paragraph is an interesting mix of logic, illogic and just incorrect statements. While there are certainly strains of bacteria whose resistance is linked to hospital use of antibiotics, it is no where near correct to state that this is a totality or even a majority of cases. Bacteria aren't terribly bright, just persistent. Stick some antibiotics in their culture medium, wherever it happens to be, and somebody's bound to come out alive. It's just selection pressure in action. In the hospital, in the home, in the cattle yard.
Just what the hell are you talking about? While there are diseases that are due to an immune response set up by a bacterial infection, for example, rheumatic heart fever from streptococcal sore throat (and there are several others), I don't think you will find any evidence to support your claim that stomping out every bacterial infection the instant it starts (and you know this just how?) will help you in any way. In fact, for strep throat, it is quite clear that you have ten entire days after the onset of symptoms to start antibiotics in order to prevent rheumatic heart fever. While there are some interesting hints that some chronic diseases, such as atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) is linked to chronic low grade bacterial infections, the current longitudinal studies where they have given people antibiotics for several years on a regular basis have failed to show any real decrease in heart disease. There are a number of flaws in these studies, the most striking is that they have been too short (one or two years) but my point is that simply taking antibiotics at the first instant of an infection (and again, how to you know this??) doesn't seem to help the immune system modulated damage. It's way harder than that.
And for all of the rest of you folks. The living organism isn't just a petri dish, the immune system modulates and in fact is responsible for most of the clearance of bacterial infections. You don't have to kill every damned little microorganism, in fact, if you do you tend to create other problems. You just have to let the immune system get an upper hand. It's a very complicated problem. Anybody here taken a good, hard look at what we know about the immune system lately? Your head will asplode. We don't know nearly as much as we need to in order to deal with the complex problem of bacterial
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Has anybody ever understood that germs are a good thing? Ok, I know some people might think that I am being gross, but germs are why we are here today.
People don't understand that by having EVERYTHING, EVERY surface, EVERY food, and drink super-duper sanitized, we are doing more harm to ourselves than if we were not. Germs are what gives our immune system its effectiveness, and by reducing things it has to fight against, it loses the opportinities to recognize, learn about, and fight off foreign invaders.
People NEED to get sick. Period. There is no logical argument against that. The more sanitary we get, the sicker we become. Humans evolved through experiences with germs. If germs were as evil as a thing as we are being led to believe, then the human race, and just about all life, would not exist today. Immunity from diseases cannot be taught. Human beings can only learn how to fight off an illness by experiencing it.
Unfortunately, being anti-germ is a socially and politically correct thing to do, because your average idiot doesn't understand that you can beat your enemy be using it.
People NEED to get sick. People NEED to die. It's how he human race got to where it is, and now we are destroying the very germs we need to maintain effective immune systems. No drug can replace an immune system.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Um, this is wrong. Production of beta-lactamases (i.e., penicillinase) is just one means of antibiotic resistance. There are lots of strategies that bacteria use to evade antibiotics without expending energy. One example is gram positive bacteria that use modified peptidoglycan.
Also, methicillin-resistant staph aureus doesn't infect only immunocompromised hosts. Neither do vancomycin-resistant enterobacteria. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a major, major pathogen that affects immunocompetent people and still manages to be resistant to a lot of antibiotics.
Pathogenic bacteria are bad. Pathogenic bacteria that are antibiotic resistant are worse.