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Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Persistent Bacteria Go Down

Posted by samzenpus on from the catching-more-bugs-with-sugar dept.

Doctors have discovered that adding sugar to antibiotics increases their ability to knock out persistent staph infections (abstract). Certain types of bacteria called persisters shut down their metabolic processes when exposed to antibiotics. Adding sugar keeps the bacteria feeding, making them more susceptible to drugs. From the article: "Adding such a simple and widely available compound to existing antibiotics enhances their effectiveness against persisters, and fast. One test showed that a sugared up antibiotic could eliminate 99.9 percent of persisters in two hours, while a regular antibiotic did nothing. Doctors believe that this discovery will help treat urinary tract infections, staph infections, and strep throat, but its most life-saving application may be against the age-old disease tuberculosis. This infection of the lungs kills many people, and is hard to fight off. A little sugar could help save a lot of lives."

4 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Discovered? by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Discovered? No, we've known this and used this for years. It's a typical procedure to treat difficult wounds that are failing to close by 2nd or 3rd intention with sugar or honey. We also grind up fenitoin pills (used to treat epileptics) and add them to the wound, since fenitoin stimulates fibroblasts and helps with would healing. Of course this is not an FDA approved use of the drug, but it works.

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  2. Re:Let me be the first to say it... by TheLink · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just wondering how long it would take for the bacteria to become resistant to this technique.

    Is there a reason why it would remain hard for the bacteria to stay dormant in the presence of antibiotics as long as there is sugar around?

    Might be trivial enough for the bacteria to evolve around this by next month ;).

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  3. Re:time to stop the black coffee. by DarwinSurvivor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    High blood sugar does not necessarily mean you ate a lot of sugar, in fact, the summary sounds like they are talking about white sugar. White sugar is far from the only sugar out there. The basic rule of thumb is: if the ingredient ends with "ose", it's a sugar (sucrose, dextrose, lactose, fructose, etc). Btw, I come from a family with a long history of Diabetes (both type 1 and 2).

  4. Not quite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Studies have pointed to the fact that many bacteria still "eat" the Xylitol -- they just can't digest it, and starve, or are otherwise impaired. Not a bad thing in these cases.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21037297 for one of many cromulent studies out there involving bacterial uptake of Xylitol.