Study suggests hungry bacteria may be making us sick
/We may someday fight toxic bacteria by feeding them instead of trying to kill them with antibiotics.
Researchers have found that starving some bacteria cells of certain nutrients may cause them to release toxins into our bodies, which can make us sick. Bacterial toxins are responsible for diseases like anthrax, botulism, pertussis, and food poisoning.
A study published in the journal “Nature Microbiology” looked at Clostridium perfringens – a rod-shaped bacterium found in the intestinal tract of humans and other vertebrates, insects, and soil. Scientists found that the C. perfringens cells that were not producing toxins were well-fed with nutrients and toxin-producing C. perfringens cells appeared to lack those nutrients
To determine the impact of nutrient exposure on toxin-producing cells, researchers from UNC School of Medicine, Harvard, Princeton and Danisco Animal Nutrition treated the toxin-producing cells with acetate, a fatty acid typically found in the gut. After treatment, toxin levels dropped across the community and the number of toxin-producing cells declined.
These findings suggest that nutrients play an important role in bacterial toxicity. They also may have some immediate implications. C. perfringens is deadly to chickens and highly contagious – which means it can spread through a chicken barn quickly.
An article on the study published by UNC Health speculates that, as the food industry decreases its use of antibiotics in poultry production, the birds are left defenseless from the rapidly spreading, fatal disease. The findings may give farmers a new tool to reduce pathogenic bacteria without using antibiotics.
Study co-author Adam Rosenthal, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, theorizes that introducing nutrients into bacteria could provide a new way to treat bacterial infections in both humans and animals.
The research is particularly timely since the world is racing to reduce its dependency on antibiotics, which have been widely used to increase the production of farm animals and fish.
Overuse of antibiotics is creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. One study estimates that antibiotic resistance results in more than 2 million illnesses and 23,000 deaths annually in the United States alone.
As Methuselah Foundation focuses on the mission of making 90 the new 50 by 2030, we recognize it will take a combination of advances to extend the healthy human lifespan.
Some will be big, like bio-printing human tissue for replacement parts. And others will be small, like finding ways to protect us from bacterial toxins without creating strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Taken together, scientific progress will enable us to live our most fulfilling lives.