Slashdot Mirror
Existing Drugs Fight Antibiotic-Resistant Bugs
sciencehabit writes "Medical experts have been powerless to stop the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and are increasingly desperate to develop novel drugs. But a new study finds that smarter use of current antibiotics could offer a solution. Researchers were able to keep resistant bacteria from thriving by alternating antibiotics to specifically exploit the vulnerabilities that come along with resistance—a strategy that could extend the lifespan of existing drugs to continue fighting even the most persistent pathogens."
I was expecting to see the article saying heroin and cocain fight pathogens .
I was thinking somewhat along the idea, written in summary. We could battle resistance with somekind of phasing of antibiotics in and out of use.. For example we could phase out one type of antibiotic for say decade, then bring it back and phase out another. Could this work?
Hey, we should set up a system that texts our doctors immediately when it is time to shift to different antibiotics, in order to combat the absolute latest resistant bacteria. Unfortunately we'll have to come up with quadrillions of $ of "support" funds to re-educate most of them from relying on Big Pharma for directions on what they should do (i.e. "Just keep giving out full-spectrum XYZocillin, it's grrrrrrrrrrr-eat!")
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Don't use them unless they are necessary.
In TNG, Starfleet made it a regulation to alternate phaser frequences in order to fight the Borg. The Borg soon adapted to that strategy.
It would be strange for the bacteria not to adapt to the strategy of alternating antibiotics as well. It seems the bacteria have a very good pattern recognition mechanism.
The biggest thing to make this work is that we need faster and cheaper detection of specific attributes of any bacterial infection. DNA typing is all well and good, but we still need to work on being able to attribute specific characteristics to a given strain. Something that takes less than an hour and $20 would be great.
I remember first proposing this back when I learned about phages - viruses that target bacteria. Thing is, they're much more specific to any given strain of bacteria than antibiotics are, which are comparatively broad-spectrum. In order to effectively employ them you'd need to ID the specific strain. Then you hit the bacteria that's infecting you with an infection of it's own - kind of like opening a second front in a war.
Same deal with antibiotics I guess. Develop a profile of the infection and which antibiotic(s) would be best suited for dealing with it.
A couple dozen antibiotics is still a much smaller shelf than the several hundred/thousand phage cultures you'd need.
I don't read AC A human right
"*Big Pharma Companies* have been powerless to stop the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and are increasingly desperate to develop novel drugs."
Here's a hint: Stop indiscriminately throwing antibiotics at everything that moves. It's precisely the over-use of these drugs that has created the problem in the first place.
It must be funny to make a new product that kills a living being and then see how in a matter of years the being evolves to be immune to your product or to bypass it in some novel way.
It must be great to understand that your amazing attacks are avoided by a system that requires no intelligence. That you're being outsmarted by the natural algorithm of evolution.
Our nurses would use several IV vitamin C infusions to "reset" the biofilm resistence in chronic UTI for amoxicillin reuse, as repeatedly shown for antibiotic resistance in culture tests. Cipro was a patient killer, much less the nastier expensive stuff.
Probably the biggest mistake we made the last century was to change away from using copper and brass in hospitals, to stainless steel and chrome - turns out that copper cladded work surfaces is a very effective way to control bugs in hospitals and they don't get resistant to it.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Over prescription of antibiotics is a huge problem here in Asia mostly due to cultural face saving practices. In the West when you go see a doctor you are sometimes, probably not often enough, told to just go home, stay hydrated, rest and that you don't need any medication because there's no medication that can really help.
In Asia however, when someone sees a doctor they expect to go home with something. Even though the doctor's advice is 'respected' it would be a loss of face for a patient seeking treatment to be told to just to go home and rest, no medication is needed. It's hard for Westerners to understand, and IMHO serves very little purpose in today's society, but Asians would view coming home from a doctor without medication as the doctor not doing their job. Also, by not providing some kind of medication the doctor is basically, in the Asian mind, telling the patient "you are wrong, there's nothing wrong with you" which would be a big loss of face for the patient.
There's also a cultural service and purchasing custom that applies but it's much more esoteric and difficult to describe. Briefly, there's an expression "buy 10 buns, get 11 bags" because everyone is conditioned that a transaction is not complete until the goods or services are delivered well and completely packaged. It's a nice polite custom and all but you should see the dumbfounded look on many vendors' faces when I tell them I do not want a plastic bag for my purchase(s). It may sound irrelevant but it comes into play at the doctor's office in terms of, the service transaction is not complete until medicine is delivered.
So, doctors here are not able to go against the cultural grain, even though they know medically and scientifically that antibiotics will do more harm (in the long run) than good, the cultural conditioning is too strong so they always prescribe and 9 times out of 10 it's antibiotics. I was a paramedic in the US for years and I know treatments are highly relative to cultures. I've got no problem with cupping or coining or other 'treatments' that appear to be absurd when viewed through the filter of my culture but, none of those practices have an international impact.
Over prescription of antibiotics is a very significant international problem and Asia is doing the world a huge disservice by allowing it's cultural customs to influence medicine to such a degree in this matter.
Less *is* more.
'nuff said.
It may work for now, but if it becomes a prevalent treatment-scheme then there's all the more risk of nurturing multi-resistent bacterias into existence.
I thought they figured out long ago that multiple antibiotics simultaneously, especially ones with different mechanisms (such that two, not one, mutation would be required, and thus infinitely less likely to happen) was the way to go, and the only thing slowing them was stacking side effects.
If not, sorry, my bad. I should have published something in the mid 1990s when this first occured to me. Sorry dead people :(
This research is interesting because it makes headway where one mutation increases sensitivity to other antibiotics, also useful.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Seem quite simple, doesnt it? The fact that cattle, fish and shrimp feed in asia have huge amounts of antibiotics as a "preventive" measure to keep the animal from going sick, and the resistance the bacteria gain dealing in that sick field, and whatever trickles up the food chain doesnt seem to bother anyone, has long money is made. And nobody will care until it is too late. Big pharma also doesnt care, quite by the contrary the patents have long expired, and antibiotics are bought by the shovel, as soon as they stop working they will have then gov "fund" to further develop very expensive nanomeds. This seems like a stupid plot from a bad scifi movie.
This isn't just an Asia thing. You have described at exactly how food production in the USA works. I'm sure that there are other countries where it's the same. Food production in the USA is Big Business and Big Business always gets what it wants. What they want is zero loss and the way to achieve this is to use high amounts of pesticides that kill any bug that dares to get near produce and feed antibiotics to animals to keep them alive long enough to slaughter them.
The only drug that actually works. And I don't mean it's derivatives. Unless you are allergic to it, it's still the best drug on the market. If I have a bad cold I can shed it within 8 hours or so as opposed to something like amoxycillin which takes days at best. But since it's dirt cheap the drug companies are pushing "modern" drugs at a premium and telling you they are better.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
I remember to have read something about insect colonies, like ants, bees and wasps using
mixtures of multiple chemical products with antibiotic properties to protect the nests and offspring,
and for millions of years bacteria had not become resistant.
It seems bacteria easily get resistant to a single antibiotic, but have a hard time with cocktails
containing a mixture of multiple killing agents.
Conventional medicine is a dead end. Nanotech is the future of medicine. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we quit wasting time/resources with things like this.
Modify your phaser to use a modulating frequency and bandwidth.
(Not to be confused with the time the Borg assimilated Brook Shields)
Using viruses as weapons against bacteria seems like an awesome idea, however, wouldn't a person's own immune system start attacking its ally the phage?
I mean, parts of the immune system, all they do is react to antigens, and phages would be seen as just another invader that doesn't belong, regardless of the fact that it is attacking a common enemy.
For this reason I'm not sure phage therapy would necessarily work.
--PM
Perhaps drug researchers can find a way to allow the original organism in some antibiotic sources, say penicillin mold, to react to the evolved bacterium, thus changing its antibacterial toxin naturally as it must have done for millions of years to keep ahead of whatever was trying to consume it. Could we let nature battle the evolving immunity issue naturally? Large tanks of naturally acquired, say penicillin mold again, with its natural genetic variations placed in close proximity to the antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
And, another thought: could drug companies herd the evolving drug resistant bacteria into a cul-de-sac where we are waiting for them by adding a "hook" of some kind to the antibiotic that they (the bacterium) would also change for - to their future disadvantage. We (humans) would be waiting with another antibiotic specifically formed to take advantage of that "hook."
E Proelio Veritas.
It's my understanding that the Russians had some success with real world trials. Your body's immune system attacking the phage as well is indeed a concern, but so isn't it attacking the antibiotics.
The trick is that the virus is released after the bacteria, and while the body will eventually respond to it it should take enough time to take a good chunk out of the infection.
Designing them so the human body doesn't quickly generate an immune response against the phages would be a good trick though.
I don't read AC A human right