Sort of OT, but a lot of us have to worry about
hospital acquired infections during all of the testing and treatments we deal with for our PC, so not totally OT.
This article says "Early results on the 'potion', tested in vitro at Nottingham and backed up by mouse model tests at a university in the United States, are, in the words of the US collaborator, “astonishing”." I personally don't find it all that astonishing, because of things I have read from sources that have been shown- to me at least- to be fairly reliable over the years. But I do find it to be confirmation of that other info and very interesting:
www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2015/march/ancientbiotics---a-medieval-remedy-for-modern-day-superbugs.aspxarticle said...
A one thousand year old Anglo-Saxon remedy for eye infections which originates from a manuscript in the British Library has been found to kill the modern-day superbug MRSA in an unusual research collaboration at The University of Nottingham.
Dr Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert from the School of English has enlisted the help of microbiologists from University’s Centre for Biomolecular Sciences to recreate a 10th century potion for eye infections from Bald’s Leechbook an Old English leatherbound volume in the British Library, to see if it really works as an antibacterial remedy. The Leechbook is widely thought of as one of the earliest known medical textbooks and contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes for medicines, salves and treatments..................................The recipe calls for two species of Allium (garlic and onion or leek), wine and oxgall (bile from a cow’s stomach)............
Early results on the 'potion', tested in vitro at Nottingham and backed up by mouse model tests at a university in the United States, are, in the words of the US collaborator, “astonishing”. The solution has had remarkable effects on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which is one of the most antibiotic-resistant bugs costing modern health services billions................The team now has good, replicated data showing that Bald’s eye salve kills up to 90% of MRSA bacteria in ‘in vivo’ wound biopsies from mouse models. They believe the bactericidal effect of the recipe is not due to a single ingredient but the combination used and brewing methods/container material used. Further research is planned to investigate how and why this works..........................University microbiologist, Dr Freya Harrison has led the work in the laboratory at Nottingham with Dr Steve Diggle and Research Associate Dr Aled Roberts. She will present the findings at the Annual Conference of the Society for General Microbiology which starts on Monday 30th March 2015 in Birmingham.
Dr Harrison commented: “We thought that Bald’s eyesalve might show a small amount of antibiotic activity, because each of the ingredients has been shown by other researchers to have some effect on bacteria in the lab – copper and bile salts can kill bacteria, and the garlic family of plants make chemicals that interfere with the bacteria’s ability to damage infected tissues. But we were absolutely blown away by just how effective the combination of ingredients was. We tested it in difficult conditions too; we let our artificial ‘infections’ grow into dense, mature populations called ‘biofilms’, where the individual cells bunch together and make a sticky coating that makes it hard for antibiotics to reach them. But unlike many modern antibiotics, Bald’s eye salve has the power to breach these defences.”
Dr Steve Diggle added: “When we built this recipe in the lab I didn't really expect it to actually do anything. When we found that it could actually disrupt and kill cells in S. aureus biofilms, I was genuinely amazed. Biofilms are naturally antibiotic resistant and difficult to treat so this was a great result. The fact that it works on an organism that it was apparently designed to treat (an infection of a stye in the eye) suggests that people were doing carefully planned experiments long before the scientific method was developed.”.....
So maybe Garlic does more than keep away vampires, especially when combined with onions? And actually might be far superior treating deadly MRSA- at least in these lab tests and mouse models- to our best antibiotics? Of course the ingredients from the cow's stomach make it a bit trickier to mix up a batch at home!
I don't guess they did any testing for side effects? Since antibiotics can have whopper SEs sometimes. I have a friend who had some serious achilles tendon problems that were blamed on an antibiotic- might have been Cipro. Made me a little nervous after I studied up on that as I took my Cipro prior to my URO referreal, in case(and hoping) my PSA rise was due to prostatitis. If further research shows this to be true, and if they can figure out a way to patent it and make it prescript
ion only, then maybe we will hear more about
this. Otherwise, probably not.
And continuing on the subject of antibiotics and research, there is also this:
www.bbc.com/news/health-30657486There you go, have fun, talk among yourselves!
