Alpha
#1
Professor Ronan McCarthy, at Brunel University of London’s Antimicrobial Innovations Center, and his team have found saccharin shows surprising power to overcome antibiotic resistance:
“Saccharin breaks the walls of bacterial pathogens, causing them to distort and eventually burst, killing the bacteria. Crucially, this damage lets antibiotics slip inside, overwhelming their resistance systems.”
[…]
The international team found that saccharin both stops bacterial growth and disrupts DNA replication and stops the bacteria from forming biofilms—sticky, protective layers that help them survive antibiotics.
They also created a saccharin-loaded hydrogel wound dressing that, in tests, outperformed market-leading silver-based antimicrobial dressings currently used in hospitals.
“This is very exciting,” Prof McCarthy added. “Normally it takes billions of dollars and decades to develop a new antibiotic. But here we have a compound that’s already widely used, and it not only kills drug-resistant bacteria but also makes existing antibiotics more effective.
“Artificial sweeteners are found in many diet and sugar-free foods. We discovered that the same sweeteners you have with your coffee or in a ‘sugar-free’ drink could make some of the world’s most dangerous bacteria easier to treat.”
Not clear what saccharin would do to “good” bacteria.
Antibiotics can wreck havoc on a healthy microbiome.
KarlT
#2
Am I reading this correctly, that all of this study is in vitro?
If it’s used on dressing wounds, presumably that’s all that matters in case there are pathogens around, acting like a disinfectant.
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