Natural Alternatives to Antibiotics: How you can Supercharge Your Immune System and Fight Infection

pelvic inflammatory disease

some eye infections, and

sore throats (rare), often when there is also genital infection.

Neisseria gonorrhoea is now widely resistant to penicillin-type antibiotics and also, increasingly, to tetracycline. At the moment it is demonstrating only slight resistance to commonly used antibiotics such as spectinomycin and fluorinated quinolones.

NEISSERIA MENINGITIDIS

This is involved in:

bacterial meningitis infections

acute sore throats.

For many years sulfonamide drugs were used to treat infections caused by Neisseria meningitidis; however in the 1960s resistance developed which made this form of antibiotic relatively useless. It was however still (and remains) largely controllable by penicillin, although this too is beginning to change.

Just how rapidly resistance to antibiotics can develop is illustrated by the pattern found in Spain, where in 1985 Neisseria meningitidis was not at all resistant to penicillin. However, by 1987 approximately 7 percent of the organisms were showing resistance, and by 1989 20 percent had reduced susceptibility to penicillin.

ENTEROBACTERIA

This group includes E. coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Serrata spp, Shigella, Salmonella and Campylobacter. These organisms are found in almost everyone’s intestinal tract, in small numbers. It is when changes occur which allow them to become rampantly infectious that problems arise – once again we see how important the environment in which bacteria live is to how they behave, and must keep reminding ourselves that the ‘environment’ of the intestinal tract, above all other parts of the body, is capable of being seriously damaged when antibiotics are used.

The enterobacteria can be involved in infections of the:

intestinal tract, for example in food poisoning

abdomen (often following injury; also in peritonitis)

ear (acute otitis media)

blood (bacteraemia)

bones and joints

brain (often in brain abscesses; in meningitis of newborn babies)

tissues under the skin (cellulitis; a potentially very serious infection, often as a result of intravenous drip insertion)

some eye infections

lungs (pneumonia) and, not uncommonly,

infections involving transplant patients.

Many of these organisms are now resistant, to a greater or lesser degree, to a range of antibiotics. For example, E. coli (a common food poisoning agent), although usually sensitive to ampicillin and amoxycillin, has occasionally shown multiple resistance to almost all antibiotics, and this trend is expected to continue.

Klebsiella, Enterobacter and Serrata spp have in the past often caused outbreaks of infection in hospitals; these outbreaks have been controlled by the use of antibiotics such as cephalosporins and aminoglycosides. Researchers report, however, that strains of Klebsiella have now appeared which are capable of producing serious infections, especially in people with compromised immune systems, and which have become resistant to almost all antibiotics except for carbepenems.

Salmonella, one of the enterobacteria, is often a cause of food poisoning. About 80 percent of the bacteria recovered from infected patients are found to be resistant to major antibiotics. They remain susceptible to some fluoroquinolones antibiotics, although resistance is on the increase.

Professors French and Phillips add their voices to the controversy surrounding feeding animals with antibiotics. They point out that there is strong evidence that the use of antibiotics in animal feeds (to increase the animals’ growth rate) has contributed greatly to resistance in many of those enterobacteria found in human infections. This trend continues, unfortunately; as more advanced antibiotics (quinolones, see Chapter 4) are being used in farm settings, so resistance to these drugs has now appeared when humans are being treated for salmonella infection relating to food poisoning.

The use of antibiotics in animal production for food has been a cause of concern for many years. In 1986 after discovering that fully one-third of patients hospitalized with antibiotic-resistant infections had had no previous antibiotic treatment themselves, the Swedish government banned antibiotics in animal feed because of the fear that their use was breeding antibiotic-resistant microorganisms and that these were being transferred to humans when consumed in meat.

Since 1988 almost all Swedish farm animals are antibiotic-free, and they are also among the only commercial flocks which are free of salmonella as well.

Unfortunately, largely because of economic factors and enormous pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, few other countries are even considering this vital step, a state of affairs which is certain to encourage the further development of antibiotic-resistant strains.

PSEUDOMONA AERUGINOSA

This bacteria is commonly involved in infections acquired while in the hospital (known scientifically as nosocomial infections – after the Greek word for hospital).

It is not uncommon to find it involved in infections of:

the blood

bones

joints

lungs

the urinary tract

the abdomen (peritonitis).

It may be introduced to the body leading to infection by means of a catheter, or during transplant surgery. It has displayed resistance to many forms of antibiotics, but at present remains treatable.

ACINETOBACTER SPP

This organism, which normally lives on the skin, can (usually in hospital settings) opportunistically become involved (perhaps after catheter use) in infections of the:

urinary tract

the lining of the brain – meningitis

and in peritonitis.

It has become widely resistant to antibiotics which previously controlled it.

MYCOBACTERIUM TUBERCULOSIS

Tuberculosis was until recently under control, at least in developed Western countries. However it has re-emerged as a major threat, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis can now be found in forms which are almost untreatable.

One of the major reasons for the development of resistance has been the tendency for some patients to fail to complete their courses of antibiotic treatment, one of the major factors that offers bacteria a chance to evolve defenses against a drug which is trying to kill them. It is as though a defending army were to show potential invaders how it proposed to defend itself and then decided to take a vacation, so allowing the invader time to work out new ways of overcoming it.

Among the most important background reasons for the emergence of multiple drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are thought to be: