> In bacteria grown in well-oxygenated laboratory conditions, the antidepressants caused the cells to generate reactive oxygen species: toxic molecules that activated the microbe’s defence mechanisms. [ ... ]
> However, in bacteria grown in anaerobic conditions, levels of reactive oxygen species were much lower and antibiotic resistance developed much more slowly. [ ... ]
> But in healthy humans, E. coli is found mainly in the large intestine, where conditions are anaerobic, meaning that the process described in the paper might not occur at the same rate in people, says Maier.
So the study shows that antidepressants help bacteria resist antibiotics if you test in oxygen-rich conditions. But that doesn't match conditions in the human body, so this may not even be relevant to humans.
Their next step is to study it in mice, which makes sense, but to me it seems like you can't conclude much right now.
> In bacteria grown in well-oxygenated laboratory conditions, the antidepressants caused the cells to generate reactive oxygen species: toxic molecules that activated the microbe’s defence mechanisms. Most prominently, this activated the bacteria’s efflux pump systems, a general expulsion system that many bacteria use to eliminate various molecules, including antibiotics. This probably explains how the bacteria could withstand the antibiotics without having specific resistance genes.
So the study was:
* Done in a petri dish
* Done in an environment dissimilar to the human body
* Showed an adaptation to the environment unrelated to antibiotic resistance
Showing adaptation "efflux pumps" for oxygen removal and claiming it's applicable to antibiotics seems like claiming yoga mats are made from jet fuel because they both contain water.
It would be really interesting if they tested a null here which I don't see noted anywhere. If the adaptation happened in the oxygen rich environment without the antibiotic it would indicate that antibiotics are not causal.
There are alternatives to using antibiotics willy-nilly for everything. Some of the research I have read suggests that one's own body chemistry plays a part in how anti-biotic resistant a bug is and that anti-biotic resistance can be reversed by addressing that end of things. Too bad that isn't making equally big headlines.
(I have the urge to quote a song about news being all about "dirty laundry" but I can't quite remember the lyrics.)
> As a person who usually doesn't finish the full course of antibiotics if they're feeling healthy: Why does it matter?
You can feel healthy before all of the bugs are dead. The ones that remain are more resistant than the ones that died. By lettimg them survive, the baseline next time is "somewhat resistant".
Each time, this happens, the survivors are more resistant.
You're basically breeding resistant bugs. Either kill them all or leave them alone.
This is definitely cool, but I don't see why bacteria wouldn't develop a resistance to this as well. I have a hard time getting excited about such things while the basic problem of reckless antibiotic use still exists.
This approach is encouraging. I would also like to see more research with the opposite of antibiotics: probiotics. Which doesn't need to mean yogurt. I'm talking about something similar to the approach recently used with mosquitoes where infertile males were bred and released, hugely reducing the population. That type of thinking.
The first reason is interesting to think about. It's similar to how one needs to be careful in prescribing certain antibiotics, otherwise the bacterial will adopt.
It's interesting to see the "popular press" (or at least the BBC) reporting on something that every person who believes in evolution should know without thinking. Surely it's obvious that drugs, disinfectants and anti-bacterials will, over time, cause to arise bacteria that are resistant to them? Well, apparently not.
I've had this debate many times over. Here is some evidence to use, and I'm submitting it in case some of you here have also had this discussion.
> In order to become resistant to steam, it would have to give up other things that it currently spends its "budget" on.
Exactly this.
When bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, they typically do so by giving up a metabolic pathway. If you take away the antibiotic, they usually quickly revert to the 'wild type' of bacteria.
As for becoming resistant to steam, even if they could do it, once you stopped applying steam, then they'd probably be unable to survive at room temperature.
Are you saying the adaptations bacteria make to become resistant to antibiotics causes them to be easier targets for the immune system? Do you have a link I could read more about this?
When considering the axis of creating super bugs, cocktails would probably exacerbate the problem, since now you're applying several stressors in parallel. Unless you had like, 5 or so fundamentally different avenues of attack, then you could get, what, 30~ unique combos? Most people don't need anti-biotics more than 10 times in their life? If it they were equally valid in any case, doctors could just choose randomly from the set of cocktails they haven't used on a given patient before. I'm certain a cell biologist would tell me this is a dumb plan for some reason, though.
This is really interesting. I wish they would have gone the other way after. Taken the bacteria from the middle and observed how long it took to lose that anti-bacterial resistance.
I am convinced that bacterial resistance is a trait, but am unconvinced of it's permanence if the utility of maintaining it is removed from the environment.
in vitro. This article[1] mentions someone already looked at humans and found there was no increase in resistance in individuals taking antidepressants.
It's interesting they picked antidepressants to do so but the logic should apply to many substances people like to kill bugs
Like green tea and spices which hinder bacteria should also make them resistant to antibiotics.
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