How Do Bacteria Become Antibiotic Resistant
Antibiotic resistance is a genetic trait, like brown hair or green eyes. Unlike human traits, antibiotic resistance transfers very quickly between one bacteria and another.
Bacteria communicate with each other extremely rapidly, and through this communication they are able to transfer survival traits.
The TED talk below by Bonnie Bassler gives examples of some of the rapid communication abilities of bacteria.
Back in the 1970s, Dr. Stuart Levy and his team tested adding antibiotics to chicken feed. They found that antibiotic resistant bacteria quickly showed up in the chickens’ intestinal tracts. Those bacteria also spread to the intestinal tracts of the people working with the chickens.
The chickens’ guts changed within a week, the farm workers in 3-6 months. Further, the bacteria were not only resistant to tetracycline , but several other commercial antibiotics. They had learned and adapted.
After they stopped using the antibiotic laced feed for six months, the problem corrected itself. No detectable levels of tectracycline resistant bacteria were found in the farm workers or chickens.
*Note: The FDA finally banned the use of therapeutic antibiotics in animal food in 2017.
Herbal Antibiotics 2nd Edition
With antibiotic-resistant infections on the rise, herbal remedies present a naturally effective alternative to standard antibiotics. Herbal expert Stephen Harrod Buhner explains the roots of antibiotic resistance, explores the value of herbal treatments, and provides in-depth profiles of 30 valuable plants, noting the proper dosages, potential side effects, and contraindications of each.
Natural Antibiotic Alternative #6coconut Oil
I use coconut oil as lotion. It heals dry and broken skin and gets rid of harmful bacteria in the process. Coconut oil is a common ingredient in homemade toothpaste, lotion, shampoo, and other beauty-related products.
Coconut Oil.com says: The antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties of the medium chain fatty acids/triglyucerides found in coconut oil have been known to researchers since the 1960s.
Research has shown that microorganisms that are activated include bacteria, yeast, fungi, and enveloped viruses.
Coconut oil contains lauric acid, which can form into monolaurin in your body. Monolaurin helps attack some of the nastiest forms of bacteria.
Oil-pulling is becoming a common practice, and for good reason. Chew up a tablespoon of coconut oil and swish in your mouth like mouthwash for a while to remove bacteria, clean and whiten your teeth, prevent gum disease, and repair cavities.
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Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives For Treating Drug
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Natural Antibiotic Alternative #13oregano Oil
Oregano oil has been shown effective in treating tonsillitis and other bacterial infections. Dr. Axe calls it the ultimate natural antibiotic.
In essential oil form, oregano oil is particularly effective: Essential oil components are fundamentally different . Their nonselective activity makes it practically impossible for microorganisms to develop resistance. Microorganisms may be able to resist the attack on one of their targets, but this leaves all the other targets of the essential oil still vulnerable .
Oregano oil contains carvacrol and thymol, which both have powerful anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties .
Hundreds of studies on PubMed have proven carvacrol able to treat bacterial infections, fungal infections, parasites, viruses, inflammation, candida, allergies, and tumors. It has also been shown to kill E. coli bacteria, cancer cells, and five other types of harmful bacteria.
Use oregano oil to treat foot or nail fungus, parasites and infections, and sinus infections.
Be careful about applying oregano oil directly to your skin as it may cause irritation.
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Natural Antibiotic Alternative #1garlic
Ahh, garlic. That pungent-smelling, mouth-watering clove of antibiotic goodness is my #1 favorite antibiotic alternative.
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It has even shown promise for destroying three nightmare superbugs:
Robin Cherry writes, Garlic is a broad-spectrum antibiotic, meaning its effective against a wide range of disease-causing bacteria Garlic shows promise against two of the three most dangerous bacterial infections :
Antibiotic resistant gonorrhea and MRSA .
It can help prevent food poisoning by killing E. coli and salmonella.
And it is also shown to boost immunity, helping fight off bacterial infections.
There are many reasons we call garlic miraculous.
Structural And Morphological Changes
These mechanisms are not exclusively attributable to manuka honey, and several honey varieties have been demonstrated to produce morphological and structural alterations on bacteria as one of their first effects . Buckwheat honey and wildflower honey were demonstrated to induce a rapid disruption of the cell wall of E. coli, which was honey concentration- and treatment time-dependent . Structural and morphological changes, such as altered shape, modified surface layers, cellular debris, increased vacuoles, and/or with irregular shrunken cytoplasm, as well as the presence of electron dense material, were also described in E. coli cells after treatment with citrus, clover and marjoram honey . Agastache honey caused extensive cell lysis and membrane disruption in MRSA and E. coli . Avocado, chestnut and polyfloral honey samples induced membrane injury upon S. aureusand E. coli with differences among bacterial types. While the effect of the different honey samples on S. aureus membrane integrity was limited, in the case of E. coli cells, the results obtained confirm a more meaningful damage. Under similar treatment conditions, these three honey samples caused more relevant changes in membrane integrity than manuka honey . On the other hand, no morphological changes in P. aeruginosa cells were observed after Corsican honey exposure, despite the fact that this bacterium was sensitive to the different varieties tested .
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Alterations Of Bacterial Membrane Potential
Membrane potential plays an essential role in several bacterial physiological processes. The loss of the equilibrium of ion concentration inside and outside of bacteria may affect to their viability .
Three recent studies described, for the first time, that different honey varieties induce significant membrane depolarization in P. aeruginosa, S. aureus, and E. coli . This finding has great significance, since a collapse in the membrane potential means that bacteria are not able to generate the energy required to carry out their normal physiological processes, such as the correct spatial organization of cell division proteins and regular cell division function , as well as to drive the mechanisms necessary for its survival, such as some multidrug efflux pumps .
Do Natural Antibiotics Work
Natural antibiotics have been used for thousands of years, and now clinical research is finally catching up and discovering the ability of some powerful foods and herbs, able to destroy the most virulent bacteria .
From Strep Throat to UTIs and Sinus Infections you dont have to look further than your kitchen to find the most powerful natural antibiotics waiting for you to use them without making you sicker later.
Some of the foods and herbs youll find below can be consumed in their original state.
Some gain higher potency when made into tea or tinctures or extracts. Others are best used as essential oils or made into vegetarian non-GMO capsules.
In this post, youll find the complete list of natural antibiotics, how to and when to use them, and the research to back them.
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Natural Antibiotic Alternative #8cayenne Pepper
If you like spicy food and suffer from asthma, joint and muscle pain, diabetes, psoriasis, or have a cut/scrape, youre in luck. Cayenne pepper is good for treating all of those issues.
The bright red fruit of the plant contains an ingredient called capsaicin, which has been found to deplete nerve cells of a chemical that helps transmit pain messages .
Capsaicin is also shown to block the small nerve fibers that transmit the pain people with diabetes suffer from. Topically applied capsaicin has been shown to be of considerable benefit in relieving the pain of diabetic neuropathy .
Capsaicin in cayenne pepper is also effective in getting rid of inflammation, which can help treat psoriasis, and helps to desensitize airway mucosa to various mechanical and chemical irritants, which makes it effective in preventing asthma attacks .
The End Of Miracle Drugs
Originally limited to patients in hospitals , by the 1970s resistant strains had begun appearing outside hospitals. Now they are common throughout the worlds population. In 2002, I saw my first resistant staph infection outside a hospital setting. By 2011, I was receiving monthly calls and emails about them.
This rate of resistance development was supposed to be impossible. Evolutionary biologists had insisted that evolution in bacteria could come only from spontaneous, usable mutations that occur with an extremely low frequency in each generation. The idea that bacteria could generate significant resistance to antibiotics in only 35 years was considered impossible. The thought that the human species could be facing the end of antibiotics only 60 years after their introduction was ludicrous. But in fact, bacteria are showing extremely sophisticated responses to the human war on disease.
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Herbal Alternatives To Antibiotics
Perhaps no medical technological advance has been more widely heralded than the development of antibiotics. It is routinely lauded as one of the primary accomplishments of the application of science and modern medicine in Western culturethe success of the scientific method over the medicine of the past. But the advent of antibiotics has also led to a number of unforeseen medical problems, not the least of which is the development of powerful strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Fortunately, the advancement of modern medicine can meet the ancient wisdom of the past to overcome these problems with the use of natural allies: herbal alternatives to antibiotics.
Natural Antibiotic Alternative #5aloe Vera
Perhaps youve already experienced the skin-soothing wonder of aloe vera gel.
But beyond its ability to soothe damaged skin, aloe vera has been shown effective in the treatment of gum disease, hypertension, angioedema , asthma, Crohns Disease and ulcerative colitis, diabetes, peptic ulcer, and other skin issues, such as psoriasis, Seborrheic Dermatitis, plaques from the shingles virus, and cuts and scrapes.
Its ability to inhibit the production of reactive oxygen metabolites and inflammatory mediators by human colon epithelial cells makes it effective in treating the symptoms of Crohns Diseasea particularly uncomfortable and often untreatable disease .
It can also help relieve asthma symptoms in sufferers who are not dependent on corticosteroids.
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Natural Antibiotic Alternative #15cinnamon
Cinnamon is one natural antibiotic we should always have on hand, particularly when traveling and at an increased potential of contracting bacterial infections:
The antibacterial effects of cinnamon bark oil make it one of the best options when a person encounters violent bacterial infections of the intestinal tract, especially while traveling in unfamiliar territory! .
The Herbal Drugstore claims that the cinnamon spice is antifungal and inhibits fungi that commonly infect the skin. It is also a key ingredient in natural cough syrup.
Use cinnamon bark oil and cinnamon leaf oil as a powerful anti-infectious blend. Cinnamon is also helpful to reduce or prevent intestinal issues.
Disruption Of Bacterial Metabolism
Despite the fact that very few studies have been carried out to evaluate the effect of honey on the metabolic activity of bacteria, the concordance of the results obtained indicates that honey plays a key role in the metabolic disruption of both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Genomics and proteomics demonstrated that manuka honey is able to reduce the expression of genes and proteins involved in the energy metabolism of MRSA . These findings were corroborated by other flow cytometry assays to evaluate the repercussion upon metabolic bacterial physiology of reference strains of S. aureus and E. coli induced by manuka honey, and also by other three honey varieties . However, differences in bacterial response, depending on the honey type and the concentration tested, were observed, probably due chemical composition variances among samples. Metabolic disruption induced by manuka honey seemed to be an irreversible effect, whereas in the case of the other honey varieties, bacteria appear to reprogram their metabolism in response to the environmental stress, being able to progressively recover metabolic activity, at least partially, at the end of honey exposure .
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How Are Herbal Antibiotics Different From Pharmaceutical Antibiotics
Many pharmaceutical antibiotics are isolated chemical constituents. They are one compound/one chemical penicillin is penicillin, tetracycline is tetracycline and so on. This makes them easier for bacteria to adapt to and counteract.
In contrast, herbs are much more complicated. Garlic has over 33 sulfur compounds, 17 amino acids and a dozen other compounds. Yarrow has over 120 identified compounds.
In plants, the whole appears to be more than the sum of its parts. The different compounds work together to combat bacterial infections, often to produce better than expected results.
Herbal antibiotics may be one of our best options for fighting methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus .
The 15 Best Natural Antibiotics That Work
2020/10/04
Do you remember your last experience with antibiotics?
Yikes.
Its what drove me to research the best natural antibiotics from mother nature.
The constant fatigue, the digestion problems and just knowing how it destroys your gut bacteria and immunity have all developed an antibiotic-phobia in me.
This post may contain affiliate links. to read my affiliate policy.
Granted, pharmaceutical antibiotics will destroy most kinds of bacteria , and on rare occasions its unavoidable.
But:
The price you have to pay, well, in my eyes makes it completely not worth it.
Whats that price?
1. Pharmaceutical antibiotics kill all types of bacteria in your body. They kill the good bacteria in your gut along with the disease-causing bacteria.
2. The healthy gut microflora, which gets attacked by antibiotics, is 70-80% of the immune system. Antibiotics interfere with your immunity .
3. Because of antibiotics overuse, super-bugs have developed which are resistant to all but the most powerful drugs .
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Natural Antibiotic Alternative #4echinacea
Echinacea has a particular scent that instantly opens up your airways. Thats how you know it is effective for colds, sinus infections, strep-throat and other respiratory issues.
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The purple coneflower is pretty to grow in your garden and can be made into a tea, extract, juice, powder, or cream for treating a number of infections.
There have been more than 300 scientific investigations on the immune-enhancing effects of Echinaceaone of the most popular herbs in the treatment of the common cold .
Paired with goldenseal, Echinacea helps knock out strep throat. It has also been used to treat a range of problems from skin wounds to dizziness .
The Herbal Drugstore lists treating Lyme disease and vaginalinfections among its uses.
Risks Of Natural Antibiotics
Just because something is labeled natural, it is not necessarily safe.
The amounts and concentrations of active ingredients vary among brands of supplements. Read labels carefully. A person should also inform their healthcare provider if they plan to take these supplements.
While cooked garlic is usually safe to consume, research suggests that taking concentrated garlic may the risk of bleeding. This can be dangerous for people facing surgery or taking blood thinners.
Garlic concentrates may also reduce the usefulness of HIV medications.
Certain products should be avoided, including colloidal silver. This substance consists of microscopic pieces of silver suspended in water.
Colloidal silver has been recommended as a treatment for a variety of diseases, including the bubonic plague and HIV. However, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, it can be dangerous, and no credible studies back up these uses.
Taking colloidal silver supplements may interfere with the effectiveness of antibiotics and medication used to treat an underactive thyroid gland.
Silver can also build up in the body and turn the skin bluish-gray. This condition is called argyria and is permanent in most people.
Due to the current increase in drug-resistant diseases, most doctors do not prescribe antibiotics unless they are effective and necessary.
Antibiotics are most often prescribed to:
- scheduled for surgery
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Phisicochemical Characteristics With Antibacterial Effects
2.1.1. Osmotic Pressure and Low Water Activity
Honey is an oversaturated solution of sugars including fructose, glucose, maltose, sucrose and other minor sugars, such as rhamnose, trehalose or erlose, which represent around the 80% of its composition. Water is the second largest constituent of honey and may vary under normal conditions from 15% to 20% depending on the botanical origin and the level of maturity of the honey, as well as on the processing and storage conditions .
The high concentration of sugars combined with the low moisture content are responsible for the low water activity values of honey, which range from 0.562 and 0.62 , and cause osmotic stress in microorganisms . Osmotic pressure induces the loss of water inside the bacteria, and once dehydrated, cells are unable to grow and proliferate . In addtion, it has been suggested that the sugars present in honey interfere in bacterial quorum sensing , and more recently, it has been also demonstrated that osmotic pressure affects the ability of bateria to form biofilms .
Although a high concentration of sugar and a low water activity hamper the growth of many microorganisms, several studies have verified that artificial honey, prepared using a mixture of mono-and disaccharides at the same concentrations as those found in honey, is not as effective as honey in inhibiting bacterial growth .
2.1.2. Acidity and Low pH
