THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTIBIOTICS CHANGE WHEN COMBINED WITH FOOD ADDITIVES, OTHER DRUGS, AND EVEN ITSELF.
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Most people do not know this, but when you combine antibiotics with food additives, other drugs, and even itself, the effectiveness is altered. This all depends on the bacterial species of the antibiotics. Some of these combinations help the drug to defeat antibiotic resistance while others stop the drug from working to its full potential. EMBL researchers and collaborators reported it on July 4, 2018.
There was a screening experiment carried out on a large scale. It was one of its kind and scientists was able to profile almost 3000 different drug combinations on three different harmful bacteria. This large-scale research was led by the group leader of EMBLEM, Nassos Typas.
ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE
The misuse and overuse of antibiotics all over the world had led to the spread of antibiotic resistance, especially in African countries. When some drugs are combined, they can help to fight multi-drug resistance bacteria, but this is rarely used in clinical studies. That is why efforts are being made in the current experiment to systemically study the effect of antibiotics when paired together as well as additives and other drugs.
In this experiment, over 500 drug combinations used improved the antibiotics outcome, while many of the other combinations provided an adverse effect. Some of the definite pairings were used clinically for infected patients and were found to improve antibiotic effects.
VANILLIN AS A COMBINATION
Vanillin is a chemical compound that gives vanilla it is a distinctive taste. This compound was paired with a particular antibiotic known as spectinomycin. The combination worked well and helped the antibiotic to enter bacteria cells to inhibit their growth. Spectinomycin was initially developed in the 1960s and was used to treat gonorrhea, but that has changed nowadays since bacterial resistance was built against it. However, spectinomycin became useful again whe8n it got combined with vanillin. It was used against different disease-causing microbes. However, Vanillin curiously worked adversely on other antibiotics. The research paper showed that vanillin worked the same way as aspirin to reduce the activity of other antibiotics. The effect of the compound and combination has not been tested on a human. The chances that it will have a different effect is undoubtedly high.
Nassos Typas also pointed the fact that the combination of drugs that decreases the antibiotic effect could also be a good thing since some antibiotics can cause damage and harmful effects to the body since they tend to target beneficial bacteria in the body as well. The effect of the drug combinations are though very selective, and they often affect only a few bacteria. In the future, this can be used to our advantage to prevent the attack on healthy bacteria with antibiotics.
CONCLUSION
This is the first research of its kind when it comes to a broad scale screening of drug combinations with vast of different bacteria species. The combination is safe for use, and it has been approved for use in humans. Although investigations and clinical studies were carried out, more would still be needed in order to understand the effectiveness and use of these drug combinations. If more of these large-scale research is carried out, it will allow the scientist to understand the general principles behind these combinations. This will also allow selection of more rational drug pairs in the future.
References: www.sciencedaily.com
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