Solution to killer superbug found in Norway

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news181461239.html

Text

Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner.

Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked.

The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.

Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway's public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics.

[Warpy]

1. Prophylactic antibiotics are a proven failure, imo

Treating a patient with antibiotics only after an infection has appeared would seem to be a much better approach than giving a few inadequate doses after surgery, ensuring that any bugs the patient has are now resistant bugs.

That hospital in Norway is onto something.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Could be the friendlies keep a lid on the unfriendlies.

Much much more at link:

http://www.livingfoodsusa.com/library/probiotic.html

GUT REACTION: Researchers have found that Lactobacillus GR-1 and RC-14 can penetrate Escherichia coli biofilms, multiply, and survive.

Image: Courtesy of Mark Neysmith, © Gregor Reid



Experiments with germ-free animals have shown, paradoxically, that they are often sickly. Absence of intestinal microbiota leaves the animals' immune systems underdeveloped and can disrupt their intestinal morphology, problems that can be reversed to varying degrees by experimentally introducing probiotic species. Mahnaz Banasaz and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden recently published experiments showing that one of the most widely studied probiotics, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, is easily established in germ-free rats and can markedly alter their gut morphology.<7> After three days of exposure, the rate of mitosis increases in the cells of the upper small intestine, significantly increasing the number of cells in the villi lining the intestinal wall, thus aiding absorption of soluble food. Probiotic strains are now used routinely in livestock nutrition, and some certainly seem to have potential for human use against a variety of pathogens.<8>

Probiotics may have potential to boost disease resistance, says Tannock. It is well known, for example, that normal mammalian commensal microbes can increase circulating specific and natural antibodies, and thus reduce antibiotic use. Future clinical applications for probiotics might include treating food allergies, reducing hypertension, or using them as vectors for oral vaccines. A recent paper hypothesizes that probiotics might even help detoxification in cases of mercury poisoning.<9> Proponents also note that probiotics have aided in restoring intestinal flora after antibiotic therapy, reducing the duration of rotaviral diarrhea and gastroenteritis in infants, and preventing traveler's diarrhea.<3>

[xchrom]

3. Kick

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. There was a programme on TV in the UK several years ago about

some very effective system the Russians used instead of antibiotics, but it was claimed that it would never catch on in the West, as it would be difficult/impossible to commercialize. I wonder if anyone knows what I'm talking about or, rather, they were talking about.

[Celebration]

5. Phage therapy?

That could be it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. Haven't looked that up on Google yet, but I can guess it isn't too complimentary!

I've just read it was the same geezer.

[Celebration]

7. Phage therapy

It has to do with engineering viruses to kill bacteria (??)......something like that.

Eastern Europe is where a lot of this is going on......

I don't know a whole lot about it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. Yes. Now you mention it, the name rings a bell.