Replacement for daptomycin found in Zhang's Borrelia eradication protocol

New study from Zhang's team, highlighting again the fact that some essential oils are better than the most potent antibiotics.

Zhang will probably soon publish a combination of antibiotics and essential oils that will efficiently eradicate borrelia and can be tested in vivo. Please observe he found a replacement for Daptomycin (a very expensive drug, branded Cubicin in US, which also has poor BBB penetration, but was essential in complete eradication of Borrelia and biofilms in his tests).

Older daptomycin study here /www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25806811

It now can be replaced with Carvacrol a compound from Oregano oil, which crosses the BBB and has better activity against Borrelia persisters than daptomycin itself (!)

We already know cefoperazone (another weird antibiotic) can be replaced with a much more common cefuroxime
/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4748043/

So this is how a curative borrelia treatment looks like now:

- Minocycline/doxy
- Carvacrol (from oregano oil)
- Cefuroxime (brand name Ceftin)

The trick is to get the Carvacrol, i would not trust just taking oregano oil directly as the concentration of carvacrol will vary by a lot based on the brand, manufacturer, process, etc... So that is something that has to be achieved, extraction of high purity carvacrol from oregano oil and make it available as drug. Also note carcacrol alone will like not cure you, as it has to be used with Ceftin and Mino/doxy to target all borrelia forms.

The advantage of Carvacrol is it crosses the BBB, unlike daptomycin, so you can target the brain borrelia quite well now because all the 3 compounds above cross the BBB
/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306416/

The newly published study about essential oils and borrelia biofilms/persisters can be found below:

Selective Essential Oils from Spice or Culinary Herbs Have High Activity against Stationary Phase and Biofilm Borrelia burgdorferi

Jie Feng1, Shuo Zhang1, Wanliang Shi1, Nevena Zubcevik2, Judith Miklossy3 and Ying Zhang1*
1Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, United States
2Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, United States
3International Alzheimer Research Centre, Prevention Alzheimer International Foundation, Switzerland

"We found that not all essential oils had activity against the B. burgdorferi stationary phase culture, with top 5 essential oils (oregano, cinnamon bark, clove bud, citronella, and wintergreen) at a low concentration of 0.25% showing high anti-persister activity that is more active than the known persister drug daptomycin.

Interestingly, some highly active essential oils were found to have excellent anti-biofilm ability as shown by their ability to dissolve the aggregated biofilm-like structures. The top 3 hits, oregano, cinnamon bark and clove bud completely eradicated all viable cells without any regrowth in subculture in fresh medium, whereas but not citronella and wintergreen did not have this effect. Carvacrol was found to be the most active ingredient of oregano oil showing excellent activity against B. burgdorferi stationary phase cells, while other ingredients of oregano oil p-cymene and α-terpinene had no apparent activity. "

/www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2017.00169/abstract

Cool beans. Probably not going to wait for someone to extract it. I'll get my protocol worked up and if i'm not seeing results I'll give this a shot and report back. I never thought it was systemic, but guess I might be wrong. Happy to be wrong in this case

It seems like this combination is the only one shown in research to "cure" lyme disease (although it's only in-vitro). Just wondering why it's not prescribed by all LLMDs if it's our best bet? I haven't taken this combination but would like to... although I also have babesia and bartonella but then at least lyme might be gone for good. If anyone's taken this combo it would be interesting to hear how it went for you.

I was just thinking the other day that research news has been stagnant. Good to see this. When I first had symptoms in 2015 research was coming out like crazy and I though for sure in 2-3 years they will have a good combo to cure this...

full paper now available. the Discussion section is fascinating. Apparently carvacrol is a wonder drug, better than anything that was discovered so far, and crossing the bbb.

/doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2017.00169

i think the problem is taking the right amount of oregano oil and in the proper concentration.

sebreg, if u want to see what this oregano oil can do to someone that has a very high borrelia load, watch this

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f5YA-zR7_Q

now the problem is oregano oil is not produced by a pharmaceutical, like Mino or Doxy are, it's made by a plant. So that means the
- potency of the extract will be different
- some vendors will plainly lie about the contents - like 90% cavacrol, give me a break, who's gonna test that and even if they do, the penalty is just a fine...
- there are dozens of oregano plant varieties with varied amounts of carvacrol...

what i plan to do is buy them from the same producer that Zhang used. in the study i pasted, go to Materials and Methods and check the text there

"Essential Oils and Drugs
A panel of commercially available essential oils was purchased from Plant Therapy (ID, USA), Natural Acres (MO, USA), or Plant Guru (NJ, USA). Carvacrol, p-cymene, and α-terpinene were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (USA). Essential oils were added to BSK-H medium or B. burgdorferi cultures to form aqueous emulsion suspensions by vigorous vortexing, followed immediately by serially diluting the essential oil suspensions to desired concentrations into B. burgdorferi cultures. Essential oils were also dissolved in organic solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) at 20%, followed by dilution at 1:20 into 7-day-old stationary phase culture to 1% final concentration. To make further dilutions for evaluating anti-Borrelia activity, the 1% essential oils were further diluted with the stationary phase culture to achieve desired dilutions. Dox, CefU (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), and (Dap) (AK Scientific, Inc., USA) were dissolved in suitable solvents (23, 24) to form 5 mg/ml stock solutions. The antibiotic stocks were filter-sterilized by 0.2 µm filter and stored at −20°C.
"

So... Plant Therapy (ID, USA), Natural Acres (MO, USA), or Plant Guru (NJ, USA).

mpost said...
sebreg, if u want to see what this oregano oil can do to someone that has a very high borrelia load, watch this

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f5YA-zR7_Q

now the problem is oregano oil is not produced by a pharmaceutical, like Mino or Doxy are, it's made by a plant. So that means the
- potency of the extract will be different
- some vendors will plainly lie about the contents - like 90% cavacrol, give me a break, who's gonna test that and even if they do, the penalty is just a fine...
- there are dozens of oregano plant varieties with varied amounts of carvacrol...

what i plan to do is buy them from the same producer that Zhang used. in the study i pasted, go to Materials and Methods and check the text there

"Essential Oils and Drugs
A panel of commercially available essential oils was purchased from Plant Therapy (ID, USA), Natural Acres (MO, USA), or Plant Guru (NJ, USA). Carvacrol, p-cymene, and α-terpinene were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (USA). Essential oils were added to BSK-H medium or B. burgdorferi cultures to form aqueous emulsion suspensions by vigorous vortexing, followed immediately by serially diluting the essential oil suspensions to desired concentrations into B. burgdorferi cultures. Essential oils were also dissolved in organic solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) at 20%, followed by dilution at 1:20 into 7-day-old stationary phase culture to 1% final concentration. To make further dilutions for evaluating anti-Borrelia activity, the 1% essential oils were further diluted with the stationary phase culture to achieve desired dilutions. Dox, CefU (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), and (Dap) (AK Scientific, Inc., USA) were dissolved in suitable solvents (23, 24) to form 5 mg/ml stock solutions. The antibiotic stocks were filter-sterilized by 0.2 µm filter and stored at −20°C.
"

So... Plant Therapy (ID, USA), Natural Acres (MO, USA), or Plant Guru (NJ, USA).

Awesome, thank you for the info that is very helpful. Please let us know how it goes! The other thread on the oregano oil mentioned liposomal oregano oil by hopkinton pharmacy, this sounds interesting as well.

And K07, please let us know how your experience goes as well!

These seemed to keep repeating stationary phase-? Does this mean a no growth period? Could someone of science please clarify?

From link:
"carvacrol could be one of the most active ingredients in oregano oil that kill stationary phase B. burgdorferi"...

Moreover, no study has been performed to evaluate the activity of essential oils on non-growing stationary phase B. burgdorferi persisters. Thus, the purpose of this study is to comprehensively evaluate the activity of essential oils for activity against the more difficult to kill persister forms of B. burgdorferi that are enriched in the stationary phase culture...

In summary, we found that essential oils had varying degrees of activity against stationary phase B. burgdorferi....Future studies are needed to test whether carvacrol could replace the persister drug Dap in drug combinations against more resistant biofilm-like structures and for treating persistent Borrelia infections in animal models and in patients."

I think it might be jumping the gun to say Zhang's team has found a "replacement" for dapto (Cubicin)! But it is good that studies are pursuing.

As Zhang has been studying chronic lyme for quite awhile, I also hope with his NIH background & working with those like Auwaerter, he will keep his integrity.
(Auwaerter as of Oct 2017, is now named IDSA president...with much written re his not accepting chronic lyme. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4489928/).

happyjo said...
These seemed to keep repeating stationary phase-? Does this mean a no growth period? Could someone of science please clarify?

Stationary phase is what is experienced as a culture ages. There is a lag phase where microorganisms adapt to the medium and do not grow, and then a log phase where they grow rapidly, then a stationary phase where environmental stress and nutrient depletion lead to slowed growth rates and an equilibrium of growth/death, then a death phase where nutrient depletion sets in fully and they can't sustain themselves. Stationary phase most closely represents the chronic phase of an infection. Usually characterized by stress behaviors like persister cell formation, biofilm formation, etc. Strategies aimed at long term survival over rapid growth

goshawk said...
Curious also if anyone has had success with this protocol

im taking oregano 181mgx2 with carvactrol 55% on empty stomach in the morning, plus a plethora of other herbs.

i jumped on this as soon as i ended with mino+rifampin+zithro.

I was too worried for my liver/gut to try the oregano with 3 antibiotics.

It's brutal on the gut even without them ...

Mpost have you noticed any benefit? I took 15 drops of p73 and didn't feel comfortable going much higher. I didn't have any major negative effects but I didn't have any noticeable improvements either.

A few years back when I tried the ADP oregano tabs from Biotics I got a huge herx. It was definitely in killing mode. I only stopped because of the GI effects (tons of gas).

ToddPaul - Do you happen to know the difference in bioavailability between the ADP and wild oregano oil extract (Zane Hellas, min 86% carvacrol, considered the best available by many)? Thanks!