Keep in mind that media outlets are unlikely to point out the fact that antibiotic resistance is mainly caused by antibiotic overuse on farms for livestock (due to the conflict of interest when so many ad dollars come from food).
Yes, humans failing to finish their run for the time prescribed for them, and use of antibiotics for viral infections have been a problem too. But those are completely dwarfed by farm use.
Funding for new antibiotic research should come from taxes on big agribusiness and there should be more regulation on antibiotic use for livestock.
Well something between 50-80% of antibiotics are used in agriculture. Which is huge, but it's within the same order of magnitude. I'm not sure there is evidence that the majority of antibiotic resistance is caused by agriculture.
I know for example my brother takes a low dose of antibiotics everyday to treat acne. Lots of people do. That can't possibly be good for preventing resistance.
Also the germs animals have are different than those in humans. Do cattle spread gohnerrea? And the antibiotics they use are different than those used in human medicine as well. The biggest problem is it is becoming resistant even to the last line antibiotics we have, and that can't be from agriculture.
Ask your brother to stop the intake of sugar completely for 3 month (including all the hidden sugar in any processed food). I know this from myself and couple people which had acne that if you stop the intake of artificial sugar long enough the acne will mostly vanish. Even today whenever I eat high amounts of sugar I know for sure what will happen. I think this is a good example of misuse of antibiotics.
There are many good reasons for cutting down on sugar, but before we get enthusiastic, it is worth recognising that there is no established link between diet and acne.
Yes, the cause of acne can be different from person to person, but if you really think that the building blocks (ie. food) of our body doesn't have an effect on our largest organ then you are being willfully ignorant. From my experience, many Dermatologists still deny the connection for whatever reason, but I have come across many instances (including my own) where cutting back on processed sugars and dairy has drastically impacted the levels of acne someone has.
My sister-in-law is sitting across from me and is currently dealing with the acne directly related to the amount of sugary drinks she has started consuming since moving (Thai Iced Teas are addicting)
I chose that source because a) I'm British and b) the NHS has a vested interest in reducing its drug bill and antibiotic usage as far as possible. So if there were a strong correlation between diet and acne and GPs could reduce treatment by suggesting dietary changes - they would.
If you look at the article you linked the most substantial source is a study of 23 Australian men, which showed interesting, but not conclusive results. So at best the jury is out.
Note that these were low GI diets, so we are not just talking about sugar, but simple starches found in potatoes, white bread, rice etc.
> but if you really think that the building blocks (ie. food) of our body doesn't have an effect on our largest organ then you are being willfully ignorant.
Intuitively, of course this feels right. In practice, I'll wait to see the actual studies, rather than the anecdotage.
And I'm not comfortable calling the majority of dermatologists, the NHS etc "willfully ignorant "
The fact that your sister in law has moved has undoubtedly introduced a variety of life-style and dietary changes. That you've picked sugary drinks as the most important factor isn't really compelling evidence.
It's silly to refuse advice and to quote an article that doesn't deny that there could be an link, and it just say that there is no proof that definitively there is a link. It's extremely hard to do tests on humans whether something works on them or not, because scientists can't lock us in the cages to make sure we won't do anything else that will impact the results.
Right now the only way to find out is to try yourself, it is free after all, and you can't deny that in any case (whether it works for acne our not) reduction of sugar intake is good for your body.
Yep, there's one thing to tell you to do something that could potentially be harmful, vs telling you to not doing something because it might be harmful to you.
It took 50 years before it we noticed that there might be a relation with smoking causing a lung cancer and 80 years (1980) before we were sure about it[1][2].
Acne though is far less serious issue, and not many people would be interested finding cause for it, especially since it would kill business for companies selling solutions that treat the symptoms (which do help, but you need to use them regularly)
> "Yep, there's one thing to tell you to do something that could potentially be harmful, vs telling you to not doing something because it might be harmful to you.".
I don't think anyone was suggesting that it would be harmful to reduce sugar intake (although, I'm sure there may be cases where it is, or perhaps it's just easier said than done). I think it's more that there's apparently no proven link between sugar intake and acne and, given all the possible things that someone try in order do to reduce their acne, it might not make sense to choose one that has no evidence supporting it. Or at least, exhaust the other possibilities first.
Also, in the parent to my comment you say "scientists can't lock us in the cages to make sure we won't do anything else that will impact the results". But, they can, and do. It's called a controlled clinical trial. I've participated in one that went on for a week (was well paid for it) where we were kept in a room, fed a designed diet, and restricted in our activities. There were test subjects in the building who were in for much longer than my trial. So I don't think the idea that it's impossible to (dis)prove these things is accurate.
How can you be 100% sure it's the sugar? Perhaps it's a new set of chemicals and bacteria in the water supply of her new home? Perhaps it's the tea itself, the temperature of the drink, the cream, new molds or pollen in the air where she now lives? Or the stress of moving?
Or the stress of being a social outcast for giving up sugar?
People who say they don't eat sugar make no sense, it's meaningless. My mother in law "doesn't eat sugar" but I see her eat stuff with sugar in it all the time. Fruit, most vegetables, and milk all have sugar in them.
"A low-glycemic-load diet improves symptoms in acne vulgaris patients: a randomized controlled trial"
Cohort size 43 persons.
My summary: At 12 wk, mean total lesion counts had decreased more in the low-glycemic-load group ( 23.5 +/- 3.9) than in the control group ( 12.0 +/- 3.5).
That's because the cause of acne is so different person to person. There's teenage acne which definitely isn't caused by diet and goes away eventually. A regimen of clearasil works for these lucky folks.
Then there's the severe type that always recur every month. Less than 1% of the population has this and the standard advice never works for these people. For some, changing diet works. For some it doesn't but thats the type of acne that's possibly linked to diet.
So saying there's no link is really misleading. There's no universal law that says red meat causes acne for everyone but that doesn't mean it doesn't cause acne for you
> Overall these theories provide a plausible and useful guide to the possible mechanisms by which a high-GI diet and dairy products can exert their effects in the pathogenesis of acne and can explain in part why people native to Papua New Guinea and Paraguay, living non-Westernized lifestyles, have no acne compared with more Westernized populations such as in Belgium (Table 2 and Table S1; see Supporting Information). However, they provide only the first step to understanding the link between diet and acne.
Might be that the study says it's a myth but I know enough people including me which did nothing else then cutting down sugar and it worked. So for me the myth seems to be true. Also to be clear not eating less I mean full on stop! No sugar for month.
Also it's generally not useful to provide links like this. I can create hundreds of "sources" for you which say its myth. I can also do the opposite. If you want to link something please link a full blown study with hundreds or thousands of participants over at least half a year. Then we can talk.
It's odd that you require a full blown study with hundreds or thousands of participants before being willing to talk but you base your own conclusion on anecdotal evidence.
I can say that this corresponds to my experience. I underwent a rigorous transformation from obese teenager one summer, which included a fairly strict diet. I used to have bad acne but since then have been barely troubled by it. I have a number of friends who have acne trouble who say they have tried "everything" but I wonder have they tried anything like this for such a protracted period ...
It is really hard to stop eating sugar so drastically but it helped me a lot. After that eating even a small piece of chocolate was giving me a sugar high. High in the sense of you feel it in your whole buddy and get goosebumps. Nowadays I am more relaxed regarding sugar but I am nowhere close to "bad old times". I went from 2L-3L of high sugar soft drinks like Coke and high amounts of sweets every day to zero for a while and after that started slowly.
I remember going back to college after my "summer of dieting" (proper balanced, calorie restrictive, but not the crazy kind) and having my first chocolate bar. Sent me to the moon and back.
There's a study for treating gonorrhea with solithromycin going on right now [0]. It's a single dose, too (alleviating fears of not finishing the entire run).
For example if someone were infected with both antibiotic-resistant gut bacteria (acquired from eating contaminated meat) and gonorrhea, it's possible the latter could acquire antibiotic resistance genes from the former.
Eating the livestock (or drinking the milk) transfers antibiotics to our bodies, and then we become the environment in which bacteria are selected for resistance to antibiotics.
That's not how it works at all. The amount of antibiotics in slaughtered livestock is miniscule. In fact, the FDA requires a "clean out" phase for livestock treated with certain drugs to ensure the levels in the final meat are low enough.
Antibiotic resistance is generally spread via plasmid-mediated resistance. Overuse of antibiotics in any capacity, regardless of ingestion into humans, causes some bacteria to evolve resistance. Bacteria are promiscuous with their DNA, and resistance by one organism on one context (e.g. livestock) can easily get transmitted to a completely different organism in a completely context (e.g. humans).
Having said all of that, there are many potential antibiotics out there that haven't been fully researched (almost all currently prescribed antibiotics are beta lactam variants, which is only one small class), and this "cannot be treated" stuff is mostly just bad journalism.
Some of the biggest challenges in antibiotics are economics not technical
e.g.,
http://emerald.tufts.edu/med/apua/news/news-newsletter-vol-3...
The only recent company built on antibiotics (Cubist) was purchased for a revenue stream and its R&D was disassembled by Pharma in the last year or so. You can bet that a good amount of organization knowledge has been lost. There are some start ups out there, but as far as I understand, there is little will to provide of equity or strategic funding for early development programs/companies. With the timelines in this industry, that doesn't bode well for 'breakthroughs' in the near future. With the recent idiocy and avarice of some of the "actors" in the industry (e.g., pharma bro, epi-pen). I am bracing for a backlash on pricing, even on needed products) which would further decrease the economic will for companies/funds to invest in early stage programs.
Some comments here tout that the the wonders of science will solve this given time. Maybe so, but it's also possible that the burden of economics (and lowest-common denominator politics) could quench the wonders of science for the near term.
There was an article I read (can't find the link now) about how people discard unused antibiotics improperly and how bacteria in the wild become resistant over time.
For the particular case of antibiotic use, what I've seen is that farms with 10 cows generally apply antibiotics only when needed and farms with 500 cows generally apply antibiotics by putting it in everyones feed; it makes economic sense for both of them because of differences on how they work with these cows every day.
From what I've seen, letting cows die or mistreating them is a much worse problem in small agribusiness.
This of course depends on local regulation and legislation. But at least over here (northern EU), the bureaucracy is heavy and requirements quite strong.
Large-scale farming units have internal processes and they have more resources; there are many people doing the work with more thorough official oversight. Small-scale animal care, i.e. family or single-person farms, may be dependent on one person only. When illness - particularly mental illness - or old age kicks in, the animals may be neglected or mistreated in abhorrent ways.
On the other hand, small-scale agribusiness is also where the best animal care can be seen, there is actually an emotional bond between the carer and the animals.
Bad care is eventually caught because when you can't treat your animals well, you won't do your paperwork either. However, it is a strain on small farms as there is a fixed overhead in paperwork that is not much dependent on farm size, so there's a lot more to do per animal on small farms and thus there is more work/cost.
I suppose it is possible that large agribusinesses where you live do this... it is also possible that the small farmers near you have an axe to grind with their larger competition, and/or are open to accepting and spreading gossip and rumors without much basis in reality.
That is certainly a possibility! I didn't mean to imply it wasn't. I did a some quick looking and if your in the US, the USDA guarantees livestock insurance, this likely results in a distortion of the risk and perhaps shifts the incentives towards this sort of behavior.
But I would caution against taking rumor and gossip as strong supporting evidence.
Conflict of interests is not a conspiracy... unless you believe stuff like Fox not covering Republican scandals is a conspiracy (its just Fox being Fox)
I just want to corroborate the poster with Brazilian data.
Yes there is a 'law' that requires prescription and safe keeping of records about each sell.
But as the same laws on every level they are only enforced at the middle class level (higher and lower class do not care).
I am Brazilian and I do wish that law was more pervasive but My wish do not turn the facts other way.
So yes, abuse in third world is rampant.
I don't think that's a widespread problem when it comes to antibiotics. For some other kinds of medication, it's probably true that people get them from the black market (think benzos). But antibiotics? Really? Do you know anyone who has ever done that? I'm sure those places exist but to say they are affecting resistance is a very big claim. And it has nothing to do with social class, every pharmacy I've been to in Brazil has been similarly paranoid about prescriptions, regardless of the neighborhood or clientele. Maybe that's a Southeast bias, but I'd like to see some hard data about black market antibiotics being so common.
Yes it is a Southeast Bias [1].
Check the map and choose the lowest IDH regions. and google it.
and "For some other kinds of medication, it's probably true that people get them from the black market (think benzos)."
Please, the market does not care what kind of medicine is dealt with, the black market is there to provide anything.
You just need to go to the country side to see it.
That is just not true. In Brazil where I live antibiotics are highly controlled and pharmacies will get in trouble if they sell them without a prescription. They take several steps to verify each prescription. The same is true for other countries I've visited in South America. Self medication is a real problem but it's usually done by people who have leftovers from past treatments or get these from friends.
Basically as we get to understand exactly how cells work and how bacteria do what they do, and how they change. We won't need to scrounge around in the dirt to find something, hopefully, that will kill bacteria. We'll engineer what ever we need to kill what ever cells we want to kill.
No, what you're encountering is the rift between new-media science bloggery and the real rate of scientific progress. In new-media science land, a university news office press release is akin to a solved problem. Antibotics? Done! Quantum computing? Solved! Room temperature superconductors? No problem!
The press releases are abominations compared to the underlying research, and the new media companies are embellishing even further for clickbait. It's shameful because it's not reality, which means it's a close cousin of lies.
Will progress be made? Yes, but until then global medical systems and agricultural sectors need to use sound antibiotics guidelines to avoid a looming catastrophe. No press release crap is saving patients who have MRSA right now!
Headline: "Not a Drill: SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal From Deep Space"
Actual SETI website statement: "The chance that this is truly a signal from extraterrestrials is not terribly promising, and the discoverers themselves apparently doubt that they’ve found ET."
The media reported literally the opposite.
At this point you're better informed not following the news, if you don't have the time to dig for yourself.
What hope does Average Joe have of having any clue wtf goes on in the world?
...or terrestrial interference, or something wrong with the telescope. Without even one other station reporting the signal, it's most likely something local.
Everything is a probability right? I generally don't spend my days worrying about how I'm going to survive the next asteroid strike on the planet (guaranteed to to be an issue at some point). I also get in my car and drive on the highway between here and there even though I know there are people driving under the influence that can kill me if they hit my car at speed. There are people who are getting shot by other people trying to shoot still other people all over the place, but I don't strap on the kevlar vest when ever I go out. It's all probabilities.
The risk is out there that at some point Gonorrhea can become the scourge of the human race. It is instructive to review how the staph bacteria has gone from nuisance to menace. But the exposure isn't there for Gonorreha to get ahead of us. Read that opinion piece in the Guardian.
It is important to respect that things in the world can kill you, it is also important to not let your fear drive you to action that is counter productive.
Perhaps, but not everything gives the same odds and stakes.
>I generally don't spend my days worrying about how I'm going to survive the next asteroid strike on the planet
If there were legitimate news of an asteroid en route to earth, you probably would.
And there are legitimate studies of antibiotics crapping out.
And even if you don't "spend your days worrying" about the latter (which I didn't suggest everybody should), doctors, biology researchers, drug companies etc, better DO worry.
> And even if you don't "spend your days worrying"
> about the latter (which I didn't suggest everybody
> should), doctors, biology researchers, drug companies
> etc, better DO worry.
That was the point of my links, I do think it is an important topic, and when the threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria came up read a lot of different sources on how people were responding. That lead me to understand that the threat was being taken seriously, that significant funds were being invested in the solution, and really smart and dedicated people were working to find solutions. As those people started reporting on their work I could put it into the category of big problem, competent people are working on it, and they have the funding they need.
I spend more time thinking about underfunded efforts that are trying to address hard problems. For example I believe the development of tornado/hurricane proof affordable housing is under funded. Every year we (as a community of tax payers) fund the reconstruction of housing and neighborhoods destroyed by tornadoes or hurricanes. We reconstruct these neighborhoods with the same types of housing that were destroyed before knowing that it will be destroyed again. That is GDP that if we invested some of it in research and development of weather proof housing we could save in future years. As the planet warms this is just going to get worse, and flooding is going to be a huge issue. One thing about warmer air is that it carries more water, more water, more rain, more rain, more flooding. That is a problem worth spending time on and investing in.
It's not all the same probabilities, it's all different probabilities. It's just as important not to let lack of fear lead you into action that is counterproductive.
Antibiotic resistance in biofilms can be reversed. It isn't sexy. It isn't dramatic enough for the news. People don't like focusing on it. But we already have research into how to do that.
If you are genuinely worried, you can look up such info.
Sugar doesn't "heal wounds" like salt it creates an environment that prevents bacteria from surviving if the concentration is high enough.
Honey, Sugar, Salt all have been used on wounds but this can also go pretty damn wrong easily.
You however do not want to inject sugar or anything like that into the bladder.
P.S.
As a general rule of thumb you should probably avoid using "home remedies" from imadoctor.com sites.
Um, not a fan of your sugar syrup in the bladder idea.
Stuff I have read indicates that antibiotic resisatant infections basically terraform the body, like an alligator making swamps in the American South. One of the things they typically do is making the body more acid. So, if you can reverse the acidity, the biofilm starts breaking up and the infection becomes treatable again.
Finally, they alter the hydrology of wet areas in which they live, connecting existing water sources and separating others depending on their seasonal movement patterns.
Mz: "From what I have read, swamps tend to fill in over time and turn into solid land -- unless there are alligators."
Swamps abound in lands with no alligators whatsoever. In places where there are alligators, they can serve as an indicator species or keystone species for ecological studies. Certainly they alter their environment and create niches for other species, but they aren't necessary for swamps and they don't create swamps. Removing all the alligators from a swamp would not get rid of the swamp. Putting a bunch of alligators into an area will not result in a swamp being created in that area.
Yes, that is what I meant. They alter their environment.
I didn't intend to suggest that if you stick alligators in a non-swampy area, they create swamps by their very presence.
Removing alligators from certain swamps would, in fact, significantly impact the swamp and make it much more likely to revert to solid land over time. Here are a few things my son looked up for me just this morning because we were discussing the topic:
"When [Alligators] construct alligator holes in the wetlands, they increase plant diversity and provide habitat for other animals during droughts."
"Further west, in Louisiana, heavy grazing by coypu and muskrat are causing severe damage to coastal wetlands. Large alligators feed extensively on coypu, and provide a vital ecological service by reducing coypu numbers."
"They play an important role as ecosystem engineers in wetland ecosystems through the creation of alligator holes, which provide both wet and dry habitats for other organisms."
Down in "ecology and behavior" for American Alligator, we have
"Alligators modify wetland habitats, most dramatically in flat areas such as the Everglades, by constructing small ponds known as alligator holes. This behavior has qualified the American alligator to be considered a keystone species. Alligator holes retain water during the dry season and provide a refuge for aquatic organisms. Aquatic organisms that survive the dry season by seeking refuge in alligator holes are a source of future populations. The construction of nests along the periphery of alligator holes, as well as a buildup of soils during the excavation process, provide drier areas for other reptiles to nest and a place for plants that are intolerant of inundation to colonize. Alligator holes are an oasis during the Everglades dry season, so are consequently important foraging sites for other organisms. In the limestone depressions of cypress swamps, alligator holes tend to be large and deep, while those in marl prairies and rocky glades are usually small and shallow, and those in peat depressions of ridge and slough wetlands are more variable."
and
"Alligators also may control the long-term vegetation dynamics in wetlands by reducing the population of small mammals, particularly coypu, which may otherwise overgraze marsh vegetation. In this way, the vital ecological service they provide may be important in reducing rates of coastal wetland losses in Louisiana. They may provide a protection service for water birds nesting on islands in freshwater wetlands. Alligators prevent predatory mammals from reaching island-based rookeries and in return eat spilled food and birds that fall from their nests."
So basically, alligators dig holes, and this does a bunch of important things, and also they eat one of the main animals that would otherwise destroy wetlands.
Mz: "So basically, alligators dig holes, and this does a bunch of important things, and also they eat one of the main animals that would otherwise destroy wetlands."
Well, that's not what you originally said. Furthermore you're misinterpreting what you quote above too.
FWIW in the U.S. the word "coypu" is rarely used, we use the word "nutria" instead.
First of all, to say
Mz: "...like an alligator making swamps in the American South..."
is like saying that cows make cow pastures, or prairie dogs make grasslands, or oysters make the seabeds that they lie in - it is essentially incorrect.
I lived decades in the American South and have seen my share of alligators. I even raised one awhile and she did not terraform the backyard in any manner whatsoever. Mostly she crapped, irritated the dog, hissed and stood her ground until fed. To read someone speaking of alligators "making swamps in the American South" still has me laughing.
Mz: "Removing alligators from certain swamps would, in fact, significantly impact the swamp and make it much more likely to revert to solid land over time."
No. The swamp would be there with or w/o alligators. For example, Disney is removing alligators from their Disneyland parks. The swampy areas won't dry up as a result.
Swamps are consequences of geography and climate, not of alligators. There are plenty of swamps w/o alligators and alligators w/o swamps (e.g., lakes, rivers, etc.).
Humans are probably the main predators of nutria. Humans introduced nutria to the U.S. for their fur, in some instances, and to control various wild grasses, in others. Were the alligators were all gone, I have no doubt that other predators would easily pick up the slack.
Even if the nutria were allowed to reproduce unencumbered, they would not "destroy wetlands". Firstly the population would, as in the usual predator-prey models, boom then bust. Secondly, as I said earlier, the wetlands are a product not of biology, but of geography and climate. Of course biology diversifies the environment, but it doesn't create it. You could hit Louisiana with a giant neutron bomb, killing every living thing there and the wetlands would remain for eons.
My understanding is that large swamps, like the Everglades would, in fact, shrink and stop being large, stable swamps without alligators. I am not going to try to dig up further supporting links showing that as sediment accumulates, wetlands change.
Your pet alligator failing to terraform your backyard is not evidence that they do not have this impact in the wild. That is like saying "I have seen a single lion in the zoo. I can assure you, they don't hunt in groups."
Anyway, I am done with this discussion. I believe my observation is accurate. If you don't want to believe it, so be it.
In the low-lying swampy terrain of the East Texas river bottom lands through which I traipsed as a child, I observed alligators, snakes, frogs, lizards et al in their natural environment.
There is, literally and figuratively, a world of difference between the real world and the world one reads about. One's grounding in real world knowledge is critical to one's understanding. Simply because something is on the Internet (or in a book) doesn't mean it's true. Getting out into the real world helps one understand, fills in gaps in one's knowledge, and makes the difference.
Earlier on I honestly thought that you were a child or at least a young student, since your knowledge seemed to be exclusively based on a rough interpretation of readings (which did not appear particularly authoritative). However since you state that you are a parent, I am somewhat disappointed to conclude that, in your life, you may have missed out on some experiential information that many, if not most, others share as common knowledge. I regret that I don't know how to communicate that to you. I would only hope that you encourage your child to get out into the world. My best wishes.
We have an antibiotic crisis and are approaching a post-antibiotic era unless governments around the world aggressively reduce usage and incentivize new production, regardless of what the pseudo-science or soft-science clickbait articles tell you that is the truth.
That's a fantasy which we are about to run headlong into, as a species, in part thanks to people who won't face the grim reality and be responsible. This, "Tech will save us!" attitude among the a vast number of people who remain utterly ignorant of the reality of how that might happen, is literally going to kill us all if we're not careful.
Someone I know described visiting a small rural pharmacy in Nepal and talking to the pharmacist. Many locals can't afford courses of antibiotics for sick family members so they buy just a dose or two. This was allowed on even fairly hardcore, last line antibiotics which required special government ministry approval back home. If different countries have such different practices, things are not going to go well.
Can't comment on the followup / extension idea, but Scott Alexander's Meditations on Moloch is an amazing, possibly life-changing piece of writing. It's long, so you'll probably need at least an hour of time in a single uninterrupted chunk - but in the end, it's absolutely worth it.
Rather than weakening the attacker (killing the bacteria) we could look for ways to strengthen the organism (boost the body's own defense mechanisms). The health industry as a whole, has been weakened by the discovery of antibiotics and designer molecules, and as a result now spends too many resources on looking for killer chemicals (antibiotics and other drugs).
But there are other ways. One way is to follow the thread of research opened up by William B. Coley who developed Coley's Toxins, a cocktail of bacterial toxins that sparked the body's own defense mechanisms and in many cases, caused cancer tumors to turn to jelly within days and start being reabsorbed by the body. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1888599/ has more about him.
Or the way of genome therapy where researchers are studying the active genomes in both healthy and sick (or cancerous) cells to understand what knobs and buttons exist in the human organism that we might be able to adjust by means of various therapies, sometimes even benign ones. There is evidence that one of the many hundred subtypes of cancer will respond to everyday blood pressure medication. This is a relatively benign drug that, in the right conditions, will kill cancer cells. Of course, the right conditions include that the patient has certain specific genes. But genomic techniques ca discover these genomic markers and help us sort out the mechanisms by which cells resist attacks from hostile bacteria. The ultimate outcome for cancer would be that your doctor takes a biopsy of the cancer cells, their active genomes are analyzed and this information is used to build a molecular machine that manufacture a custom drug that will cure your cancer.
>The health industry as a whole, has been weakened by the discovery of antibiotics and designer molecules, and as a result now spends too many resources on looking for killer chemicals (antibiotics and other drugs).
What!? antibiotics are for the most part the most important discovery in medical history, period. They by far saved more lives than virtually any other treatment and make many other treatments possible.
These two things are not incompatible. Yes, antibiotics are awesome. Yes, we messed up because these days you can convince your doctor to give you antibiotics for viral infections (they will tell you it's useless though) and take as little as you want of it, and create more resistance problems.
It means you don't die when you go into surgery, you don't die from burns, you don't die from severe bone fracture, and cancer is actually treatable.
Chemo and radiation therapy tend to reek havoc with the immune system, certain types of cancer leave you with little to no white blood cells period.
Without antibiotics you could not have these treatment regiments at all as without preemptive and reactionary antibiotic treatments many cancer patients would die.
Without anti virals and antibiotic other conditions with compromised immune system including HIV would be considerably more fatal as well.
This is a category mistake. Treating bacteria (foreign pathogens of an entirely different species) and treating cancer (which are rogue cells belonging to individuals) are not the same thing.
What you're describing is the normal pharmacological approach to cancer treatment. Because these are the individual's own cells sharing the vast majority of its characteristics with normal, healthy cells, you have to go deep into the handful of mutations that occur that cause unmitigated cell proliferation (leading to cancer). These are targeted for treatment.
Bacteria are a foreign species and have all sorts of foreign biochemistry that can be taken advantage of. The health industry is not doing anyone a disservice by going after the low hanging fruit. Why climb through the 3rd story window when you can waltz through the front door?
Boosting the body's defense mechanisms could carry more risk that just attacking the organism. Boosting chemotaxis (WBC migration) to an area will increase inflammation which has it's own set of potentially dangerous risks. Sensitizing the adaptive immune system's to bacterial antigens runs the risk of autoimmune attack on similar-looking antigens in the host.
This isn't like D&D where you can take one point from "bactericidal" and put it into "immune boost." There are big systems in play and hardly anything can be reduced "one weird trick."
> Look at the molecular machinery of the Polymerase Chain Reaction which makes copies of DNA molecules
Antifolates, topoisomerase inhibitors, imidazoles, rifamycins are classes of antibiotics that target pathogen DNA/RNA synthesis.
Aminoglycosides, tetracyclines, oxazolidinones, peptidyl transferase, macrolides, lincosamides, and streptogramins are all classes of antibiotics that target bacterial ribosomal units.
> And there is Reverse Transcription which converts RNA molecules to DNA molecules
Using reverse transcriptase pharmacologically would undoubtedly be dangerous, difficult, unnecessary, and ineffective. You'd basically have to engineer a virus that knows how to use reverse transcriptase that also targets the right pathogen and rewrites a portion of its DNA.
This is called immunotherapy and it is not mutually exclusive, and it is being worked on to treat certain diseases.
However it's not nearly as simple as you might think and many immunomodulatory drugs have considerably worse side effects.
Immunomodulatory drugs to some extent "predate" modern antibiotics before the antibiotic boom and the advancement in modern wide spectrum antibiotics immunomodulatory drugs were commonly used to treat severe infections.
The side effects of these drugs are very very severe, can be fatal, and can cause hereditary malformations Thalidomide is probably the most famous case of a "wonder drug" going very very wrong it is still used today in extreme cases of leprosy and to treat some cancers.
But just to be clear these type of treatments are just as "designer" molecules as any other drug, there are no magic fixes in medicine you find the most effective vectors to attack a disease and you use them.
But overall >Crazy - I never actually took a step back and wondered if we could boost our defense as a strategy.
This is a bit silly, we have had vaccines before we had antibiotics :) we wash our hands, keep ourselves clean, dress wounds etc. these are all "defense boosting" strategies, and they both predate and coexist with "offensive" treatments.
An upregulated immune system is often the cause of autoimmune disorders, and is an inflammatory state (with health impacts as well). "Boosting our defense" is not a zero-risk strategy.
On the other hand, "Immune Boosting†" products are rampant and they get to make all kinds of unsubstantiated claims about their capacity to Boost the Immune System so long as they either claim to be homeopathic or market themselves as supplements and include the boilerplate disclaimer that never seems to harm sales:
†These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
These are all excellent points and we should definitely be pursuing all available avenues. I don't think this is and either/or proposition - we should look into anything that can help.
Things like genome therapy are unfortunately a long way off so we need to look for antibiotics in the meantime.
You are really overcomplicating this. The gut is about 70% of the immune system. Gut health and old fashioned lifestyle approaches that limit the transmission of germs is simple, easy, inexpensive and has been around for millenia.
It also smacks of religion and "boring, uptight" lives. So, it is nigh impossible to sell the idea.
Perhaps that will get easier as people start dropping like flies from horrifying diseases. But, for now, no one wants to hear it.
Those folks also lacked the internet, where ordinary people can look up extraordinary things that previously could have only been learned by a select few privileged people, if at all.
We also have a global economy of a sort that did not exist previously. Things that would have been exotic not that long ago can be acquired readily by people who aren't wealthy by first world standards.
People used to routinely suffer scurvy, which is almost unheard of today because a) we know what causes it and b) ordinary people have no trouble getting citrus fruits. This was not true, say, 200 years or so ago.
And global access to non-native food sources exists since the 15th century.
The difference is whether mostly everyone has access to it.
So yeah. I'd say he's right and I'd bet your fancy shmancy genetic engineering won't wield anything significant but for a residual percentage of very specific cases.
As has most medical technology. The overwhelming majority of diagnostics are still made via question/answer, palpation and hearing.
Mass promiscuity has consequences, just like poor sanitary habits have them.
Bone marrow produces lymphocytes, which are disseminated throughout the body. What mechanism of action are you proposing for "gut health" (also define what gut health means) to prevent an STI?
Yes, gonorrhea (as well as chlamydia and syphilis) can be transmitted via oral sex. In fact, I know of someone who contracted oral gonorrhea (at first she thought it was a bad sore throat) and passed it to a guy who contracted genital gonorrhea.
Vaccines are expensive to research and require a very long period of trials before being release to the public, while this happens people will die by the millions without antibiotics.
Also because bacteria can mutate making your vaccine useless, so you need to research again.
sure. did you get your flu vaccine last year? will you get another next year, and the year after? You should, but there is a limit to the number of the vaccines that are feasible either scientifically, clinically, or economically.
Here's a novel thought: Monogamy. Wait to have sex until you're married, then have only one sexual partner your entire life. That'll deal with the problem, and every other sexually transmitted disease out there.
That is not a novel thought. It is as old as religion.
Abstinence based sex education has been shown to be ineffective, leading to greater pregnancy and STI transmission. Evidence says your idea won't help. And, well, it's also boring. I'll take my chances with responsible non-monogamy.
Go for it, man. Do whatever you want. I respect a person's right to believe anything they want, all I ask is they respect my right to believe whatever I want.
I did both. Have a look at other responses I gave in this thread. As far as AbEd education, who cares. I never listened to that stuff back in the 80's, and now we have the Internet, so we've got all the information.
We're talking about a looming public health crisis; your and my personal choices aren't particularly relevant to that. Evidence says telling people to be monogamous to avoid STIs does not work.
A bit impracticle given real world data shows that "About 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an affair at some point in some marriage "Monogamy Myth", Therapist Peggy Vaugn"
aka ~50% of couples who think they are monogamous are actually non monogamous (non consensually)
Well, it works well for me. 16 years married, and I have never cheated. In fact most of my friends and colleagues have been married a long time, including my friend Irving. He and his wife have been married for 70 years (they're both 92).
The percentages are meaningless when we're talking personal choice. It is a valid way of avoiding STD's, and a choice I made back in 1990 when I was 20.
Not to be a downer, but you've only effectively lived 1/3rd of your life, not to mention is that you aren't the only partner in your relationship.
Monogamy may work, safe sex pretty much always work :)
Most people not only not getting married at 20 if at all these days, they are also having sex at an earlier age.
GL telling 16 year olds to wait, I wasn't going to get married in high school, and I had no intention of waiting then or even with hindsight now.
Safe sex pretty much always works...riiiiight. Condoms never break.
I remember the term safe sex back in the late 80's. Then the term was changed to safer sex. So let's say you're going to have sex with a person and just before you start to get it on they say "oh, by the way, I have AIDS". Are you still going to have sex with them?
And oh, look! Abstinence-only is not very effective, but Abstinence-plus presents all the information, including the closing sentence "Only if they are provided with all the information they need to make their own decisions will they be able to decide wisely."
Huh. Learning about everything and then leaving it up to the individual to decide. What a concept.
That sounds fairly Puritan. How do you define "drug"? That's the bit that matters. Alcohol? Caffeine? Theobromine? Somewhere in your diet and routine is something that meets someones definition of "drug" but not yours.
All drugs. Cocaine, marijuana, heroin, you name it. Legislation doesn't work, it only creates black markets that jack the price up and fund the less scrupulous elements of our society.
No. I agree that legislation doesn't work. You stated you don't take drugs, and I asked how you define "drug". Caffeine et al can easily be classified as drugs.
So both parties are physically/emotionally attracted to each other lets say but they're both submissive, or one has HL and the other LL (/r/deadbedrooms if you want more), or one's into monogomy and the other is polyamorous.
Just a few examples that confirm it's not a 'myth'.
A few anecdotes you mean. Polyamory usually signals a low quality mate, and is tangential to sexual compatibility at best.
Submissive usually means some disorder with the male.
There are tons of disorders that could impact sexual quality of life, but between 2 healthy individuals who are attracted to each other, sexual incompatibility is a myth.
This is some fucked up shit. Submissiveness is a disorder? No it's not.
Sure we can play this game because it's a tautology. My sexual preferences are different from yours? It's a disorder, doesn't count, you aren't healthy.
If I want sex a few times a month and my partner wants sex every day that means I'm not attracted to them? No, it's well established people have differing sex drives and sex drives change with age.
> Clearly you live on some other planet where people don't have sex before marriage
I admit that I really don't belong here in this world. I'll give you that.
Was I a virgin before I married? No. But when I learned about the facts of sexually transmitted diseases back in 1990, I chose to stop. After that, I got tested twice for STD's: once when I started dating a girl in 1993 who I was serious with, and knew that if I married her she needed to know if I had contracted anything (I was clean, but we parted ways), and once more before I married in 2000 (just double-checking. No STD's).
Still, I haven't seen one response to my comment from anyone else that can explain why monogamy won't work to stop gonorrhea. Why people are so up-in-arms in this comment thread about another person's personal choice seems silly to me. You are free to do whatever you want! I'm not going to stop you. But, we all have to live with the consequences of those choices.
I made my choice. Sorry that so many of you seem to be offended by that, but I really don't care what you think of me. I guess I have to spend my hacker news karma on something :)
Nobody's offended by your choice, that's your personal call, but to think that your particular decision is one other people can or should make, forcing your will on them, is pretty arrogant.
"Sexually transmitted" diseases have been given to people through other means, the primary vector being blood transfusions. They're also something you can pick up from needles either by being careless or having a freak accident. There's many ways you can end up with a disease of this variety even if you abstain.
Factoring in that some people are carriers, they show no outward signs of being infected, means you must get tested if you're intending to participate in any sexual activity if you're looking to minimize risk. It doesn't matter what your history is.
So your "it's easy" answer is actually advice that's misguided at best and insulting at worst.
> Nobody's offended by your choice, that's your personal call, but to think that your particular decision is one other people can or should make, forcing your will on them, is pretty arrogant.
We are talking about physical reality here. Arrogance doesn't even enter into it. We each, as individuals, make choices, and those choices have consequences.
> "Sexually transmitted" diseases have been given to people through other means, the primary vector being blood transfusions.
Primary? Are you serious? The primary means is through unprotected sex, hence the term "sexually transmitted". The blood supplies in most countries have been safe for decades.
I am not here to change minds or win friends. I'm 47. I respect a person's right to believe whatever they want, all I ask is they respect my right to believe whatever I want.
Yes, it does work for me and many other people, and it's a legitimate way to avoid gonorrhea and all other STD's including chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis, HIV, human papillomavirus, syphilis, and all other STD/STI's.
The most straightforward answer is not guaranteed to be the most implementable, especially when it relies on co-ordination power. However, various people behave variously, and there exist those for whom "a twenty mile run at night" is entirely within their power [0].
The problem is when people don't have sex before marriage they tend to get married to have sex. Then instead of having a heartbreak and moving on they are caught in a miserable marriage.
Who cares! I remember listening to abed stuff back in the 80's, and chose to have sex anyway. As I mentioned in another comment, in 1990 I heard about the _science_ behind sexually transmitted diseases and chose to stop.
If officials from the U.N. or from the WHO warn about something, I sleep particularly well at night, knowing that it's probably blown out of proportion by several orders or magnitude. Remember the bird flu? My employer at the time bought truckloads of sanitizers, plastic bins and related stuff. A complete waste of money. These people have lost every last shred of credibility for me.
Yes, humans failing to finish their run for the time prescribed for them, and use of antibiotics for viral infections have been a problem too. But those are completely dwarfed by farm use.
Funding for new antibiotic research should come from taxes on big agribusiness and there should be more regulation on antibiotic use for livestock.