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Most women receive inappropriate treatment for urinary tract infections -- ScienceDaily
"Accumulating evidence suggests that patients have better outcomes when we change prescribing from broad-acting to narrow-spectrum antibiotics and from longer to shorter durations," Butler said. "Promoting optimal antimicrobial use benefits the patient and society by preventing avoidable adverse events, microbiome disruption, and antibiotic-resistant infections."
Discoveries reshape understanding of gut microbiome -- ScienceDaily
In the study, the researchers found that the fecal matter of mice treated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic had no trace of the mucus coating. And when mice without this protective barrier received a transplant of fecal matter with microbiome, their mucus production jump-started.
This may have significant treatment implications for patients whose microbiome is out of balance, Xia explained.
"Whether because of antibiotics interrupting mucus production or a total colon removal due to ulcerative colitis, painful inflammation can result," said Xia. "Now that we better understand the role and origin of this mucus, we will study how we can supplement it or restore its production."
Clostridioides difficile infection flourishes with a high-protein, high-fat diet -- ScienceDaily
The group studied 4 groups of mice with 5 animals each. Each group received antibiotics and was fed a different diet: one was high-fat, high-protein; another was high-fat, low-protein; a third was high-carbohydrate; and the fourth was a standard laboratory diet for experimental mice.
The results were startling. In the high-protein, high-fat group, all the animals developed severe infections and died within 4 days. In the high-fat, low-protein group, only 2 animals died. In the high-carbohydrate group, 2 mice showed mild symptoms and recovered and in the standard diet group, all of the animals showed signs of infection but also recovered.
Antibiotic prescribing without documented indication in ambulatory care clinics: national cross sectional study | The BMJ
Antibiotics were prescribed during 13.2% (95% confidence interval 11.6% to 13.7%) of the estimated 990.8 million ambulatory care visits in 2015. According to the criteria, 57% (52% to 62%) of the 130.5 million prescriptions were for appropriate indications, 25% (21% to 29%) were inappropriate, and 18% (15% to 22%) had no documented indication. This corresponds to an estimated 24 million prescriptions without a documented indication. Being an adult male, spending more time with the provider, and seeing a non-primary care specialist were significantly positively associated with antibiotic prescribing without an indication. Sulfonamides and urinary anti-infective agents were the antibiotic classes most likely to be prescribed without documentation.
Transient and long-term disruption of gut microbes after antibiotics - ScienceBlog.com
In contrast, the triple-antibiotics individuals showed a significant increase of new strains that persisted as long as six months after treatment, as compared to the single antibiotic and the control individuals. Furthermore, the fraction of transient strains was also significantly higher in the multiple antibiotics individuals. This suggested a long-term change to an alternative stable microbiome state, Morrow says. These changes were not due to a difference in growth rates.
“Given the importance of the microbiome in human health, we think our results with these data sets can be used to help evaluate microbiome stability under different conditions,” Morrow said. “For example, we can now provide guidance to clinical investigators to judge the impact of certain treatments for diseases, such as cancer or diabetes, on the gut microbial community that could be significant for evaluation of outcomes. Furthermore, this approach could be applied to a patient’s pre- and post-hospitalization to identify individuals who may need further management of their microbiomes.”
Antibiotics Resistance: Scientists Develop Algorithm-Based Technique To Personalize Antibiotic Treatments
“It is now possible to computationally predict the level of bacterial resistance for infection-causing bacteria. This is done by weighing of demographic data, including age, gender, pregnancy … together with levels of resistance [which are] measured in the patient’s previous urine cultures as well as their drug purchase history,” Israel Hayom quoted Yelin.
For the research, the scientists analyzed over 700,000 urine cultures. Then they focussed on urine tract infections that involve various types of bacteria, including E. coli, Klebsiella pneumonia and Proteus mirabilis.
The researchers then developed an algorithm, which was based on antibiotic purchases made in the past 10 years for over five million cases. The algorithm provided treatment recommendations based on the infection’s antibiotics resistance.
New scan technique reveals brain inflammation associated with post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome -- ScienceDaily
Results of the study, published in Journal of Neuroinflammation, suggest new avenues for treating the long-term fatigue, pain, sleep disruption and "brain fog" associated with PTLDS, the researchers say.
"There's been literature suggesting that patients with PTLDS have some chronic inflammation somewhere, but until now we weren't able to safely probe the brain itself to verify it," says Jennifer Coughlin, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and one of the first authors of the study report.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection transmitted to humans through tick bites. An estimated 300,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year, and their infections can be successfully treated with antibiotics. Doctors diagnose PTLDS if treated patients report fatigue and brain fog for at least six months after treatment. Little is known about what causes PTLDS or how to treat it, and while studies have shown that people with PTLDS have elevated markers of inflammation -- such as the chemokine CCL19 -- in their bloodstreams, it has not been clear where that inflammation may be occurring.
Over the last decade, Coughlin and her colleagues optimized a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging technique in which specially labeled molecules -- or radiotracers -- bind to a protein called translocator protein (TSPO). In the brain, TSPO is released primarily by two types of brain immune cells -- microglia and astrocytes -- so levels of TSPO are higher when brain inflammation is present.
Feces transplantation: Effective treatment facing an uncertain future -- ScienceDaily
The study showed a large and significant difference between the faeces transplantation and the antibiotics, which are today considered to be state of the art: A total of 22 out of the 24 patients were cured after just a single faeces transplantation, while only ten out of 24 patients were cured using the antibiotic fidaxomicin. Results were even worse for the 16 patients who tested the most well-proven type of antibiotic which is called vancomycin. In this case, only three out of 16 trail participants were cured.
Additionally, more than half of the participants in the trial from the group who were given antibiotics suffered from a Clostridium infection again after completing the course of antibiotics. This group therefore received what is known as a 'rescue' faeces transplantation -- and ninety per cent of them were cured by this.
Out of the 120 referred patients, 56 were not included in the randomised trial, either because they were too ill or because they could not cope with participating. So a total of 49 patients subsequently received a faeces transplantation because there were no other options left, and of these 39 were literally brought back to life.
Six months and still not normal after antibiotics
Now, an international team of researchers led from the University of Copenhagen and Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen report when 3 antibiotics were given to young healthy men for 4 days it caused an almost complete eradication of gut bacteria, followed by a gradual recovery of most bacterial species over a period of six months.
After the six months, however, the study participants were still missing nine of their common beneficial bacteria and a few new potentially non-desirable bacteria had colonized the gut. The findings are published today in Nature Microbiology.
Scientists reveal how gut microbes 'recover' after antibiotic treatment -- ScienceDaily
We also saw that as antibiotics removed bacteria and reduced their metabolic rates in the mouse gut, there was an increase in oxidising agents called electron acceptors," Reese explains. "This new environmental state meant that the microbial community which recolonised after treatment looked very different from the original community."
The bacteria that appeared immediately following treatment, including some potentially harmful species, were able to take advantage of the electron acceptors to grow quickly. As they grew, they used up the excess resources, causing the gut environment to return to its normal state. However, this did not guarantee recovery of the original microbial community.
"Antibiotics may drive some microbe species extinct in a gut community, so new microbial immigrants from outside the mouse -- in this case from an untreated mouse in the same cage -- were likely needed to return the microbiota to its original state," says senior author Lawrence David, Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University.
Antibiotics found to weaken body's ability to fight off disease -- ScienceDaily
"Neutrophils play an important role as a first-line 'innate immune response' when foreign pathogens invade," said researcher Koji Watanabe, PhD. "We found that antibiotic disruption of the natural microbes in the gut prevented this from happening properly, leaving the gut susceptible to severe infection."
