Resistant Bacteria Quotes

Invasive plants—Earth’s way of insisting we notice her medicines.

In the wild a plant and its pests are continually coevolving, in a dance of resistance and conquest that can have no ultimate victor. But coevolution ceases in an orchard of grafted trees, since they are genetically identical from generation to generation. The problem very simply is that the apple trees no longer reproduce sexually, as they do when they’re grown from seed, and sex is nature’s way of creating fresh genetic combinations. At the same time the viruses, bacteria, fungi, and insects keep very much at it, reproducing sexually and continuing to evolve until eventually they hit on the precise genetic combination that allows them to overcome whatever resistance the apples may have once possessed. Suddenly total victory is in the pests’ sight—unless, that is, people come to the tree’s rescue, wielding the tools of modern chemistry.

Prior to their discovery in 1917, phages had been linked to miracle waters—rivers in India and other places with the power to cure diseases from leprosy to cholera. Only later did scientists, examining a naturally occurring treatment for dysentery, discover these “cures” were phages, feasting on and eradicating the disease-causing bacteria.

These changes are all fundamentally Darwinian. This point is worth repeating: taking any fast or instant evolutionary shifts as a refutation of the slow, gradual changes we associate with Darwin's vision is a fatal mistake because these quick shifts are still powered by gradualism. The woodrats might have been able to resist creosote by picking up the right bacteria, but those strains had to evolve the ability to break the insecticide on their own. Form their perspective, evolution proceeded through the usual stepwise way; from the host's perspective, everything happened in a flash. That is the power of symbiosis: it allows gradual mutations in microbes to produce instant mutations in hosts. We can let bacteria do the slow work for us, and then quickly change ourselves by associating with them. And if these alliances are beneficial enough, they can spread with blinding speed.

Hospitals, where large numbers of pathogenic bacteria and antibiotics come into frequent contact, give bacteria the most opportunity to develop resistance and virulence. Researchers examining the effluent streams from hospitals have found them to contain exceptionally large numbers of resistant bacteria as well as large amounts of excreted antibiotics.

[...] if truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all. [review of The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life, Nature 442, 983-984 (31 August 2006)]

The prodigious production of antibacterial soaps that end up going into the water are stimulating resistance among many classes of bacteria as well.

Seven people with MRSA-infected wounds were treated with honey after antibiotics failed to eradicate the infection. All were successfully treated.

One of the most important things to remember in treating Gram-negative infections is that the use of a synergist will significantly increase the impact of the herbs on the bacteria.

A growing body of scientific research links antibiotic use in animals to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria: in the animals’ own guts, in the manure that farmers use on crops or store on their land, and in human illnesses as well. Resistant bacteria move from animals to humans in groundwater and dust, on flies, and via the meat those animals get turned into.

for bacteria do not develop resistance to plant medicines. They can’t. For plants have been dealing with bacteria a great deal longer than the human species has even existed, some 700 million years.

Ironically enough, it was Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, who first warned of bacterial resistance. He noted as early as 1929 in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology that numerous bacteria were already resistant to the drug he had discovered and by 1945 he warned in a New York Times interview that improper use of penicillin would inevitably lead to the development of resistant bacteria.

A ubiquitous phrase encountered in obituaries is “died from complications following surgery,” but what is not well understood is that these “complications” are quite frequently multi-drug resistant infections. —

A chronic wound in a patient with dystrophis epidermolysis bullosa was treated. The wound, despite many treatments, had never closed in 20 years. A honey-impregnated dressing closed and healed the wound in 15 weeks.

The main herbs to treat MRSA are cryptolepis, sida, alchornea, bidens, black pepper, the berberines, usnea, juniper berry, isatis, licorice, ginger, ashwagandha, echinacea, red root, reishi, honey, and Artemisia annua.

When we borrow the antibiotic compounds from plants, we do better to borrow them all, not just the single solitary most powerful among them. We lose the synergy when we take out the solitary compound. But most important, we facilitate the enemy, the germ, in its ability to outwit the monochemical medicine. The polychemical synergistic mix, concentrating the powers already evolved in medicinal plants, may be our best hope for confronting drug-resistant bacteria.

When we look at a tree, we do not see the tree for what it really is. We see how it appears to us on the surface, and we dismiss it as being just another form in the Universe. We fail to realize that the tree is connected to the Universe on every level; that all of nature is expressing itself through that single form. There can be no tree without the earth that it grows from, the sun that gives it energy, the water that nourishes its growth, and the millions of fungi and bacteria fertilizing its soil. Looking deeply into anything in nature, we realize that it is connected to the whole. We see that nature is one seamless web, and the notion that things have an existence of their own is merely an illusion.

In fact, other than factory farms, hospitals and doctors’ offices are the primary breeding ground of superbugs. A simple injection or a minor surgery can now, fairly routinely, lead to months in the hospital, or loss of limb, or loss of life.

Or as Steven Projan of Wyeth Research puts it, bacteria “are the oldest of living organisms and thus have been subject to three billion years of evolution in harsh environments and therefore have been selected to withstand chemical assault.”10

Scientists suspect that by eating chicken and other meat, women infect their lower intestinal tract with these antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can then creep up into their bladder.1182 Commonsense hygiene measures to prevent UTIs have included wiping from front to back after bowel movements and urinating after intercourse to flush out any infiltrators. Commenting on this body of research, Science News suggested meat avoidance as an option to “chicken out” of urinary tract infections.

The primary herbs used to treat streptococcal bacteria are cryptolepis, sida, alchornea, bidens (though you’ll need to use larger doses, for longer), the berberine plants, juniper, usnea, lomatium, honey, echinacea, licorice, ginger, and red root.

There is no doubt that the widespread consumption of antibiotic-laden meat is bad for us. Ample evidence fingers this massive drug use in our meat industries as a key contributor to one of the biggest health concerns of the modern era, the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, aka superbugs. This is not some future science fiction. It is killing people right now—lots of people. The CDC called antibiotic resistance one of the five greatest health threats facing the nation, and new drug-resistant

Staphylococcus organisms are “the leading cause of pus-forming skin and soft tissue infections, the leading cause of infectious heart disease, the number one hospital acquired infection, and one of the four leading causes of food-borne illness.”23​➔​ And

Salmonella, which is now genetically lodged in the ovaries (and hence the eggs that come from them) of many agribusiness chickens, can survive refrigeration, boiling, basting, and frying. To kill salmonella bacteria the egg must be fried hard or boiled for 9 minutes or longer.

Bacteria evolved mechanisms that could inactivate, block, or excrete various antibiotics. Moreover, bacteria transferred genetic determinants for these resistances between species and aggregated different resistances together on transmissible DNA elements known as resistance plasmids or R factors.

Michael Pollan: "The industrialization--and dehumanization--of American animal farming is a relatively new, evitable, and local phenomenon: no other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do." U.S. consumers may take our pick of reasons to be wary of the resulting product: growth hormones, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, unhealthy cholesterol composition, deadly E. coli strains, fuel consumption, concentration of manure into toxic waste lagoons, and the turpitude of keeping confined creatures at the limits of their physiological and psychological endurance.

Piperine Warning Under no circumstances should you use piperine for severe intestinal infections such as E. coli O157:H7 or cholera. Piperine increases intestinal permeability, which can allow the resistant organisms access to the interior of your body in significantly greater numbers. It can make you much sicker.

To avoid this infiltration the bacteria alter the permeability of their cell membranes, often by altering the structure of the doorways that let outside substances into the cell. This makes it harder, or impossible, for antibiotics to sneak in — essentially keeping the level of the drug below that needed to affect the bacteria.

Sometimes bacteria learn how to live and prosper in antimicrobial environments, such as the cleaning solutions in hospitals. As one journal article put it, “Contamination, mainly by Gram-negative bacteria, was found in 10 freshly prepared solutions and in 21 of 22 at discard.”15​➔​ Sometimes, they even learn to use the antibiotics for food.

Very few people are aware that infections from resistant bacteria, often picked up in hospitals during routine procedures, are the third leading cause of death in the U.S. (In 1999 they were fourth.) Very few people know, as well, that the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies have stopped research and development on new antibiotics—there are virtually no new ones in the pipeline. Within the next few decades, we face, as many bacterial researchers have pointed out, the emergence of untreatable epidemic diseases more deadly than any known in history. Or as David Livermore, one of Britain’s primary bacterial resistance researchers, puts it . . . It is naive to think we can win.

the only published human feeding experiment revealed that the genetic material inserted into GM soy can transfer into the bacteria living inside our intestines and continue to function. This means that long after we stop eating GMO foods with an antibiotic gene, we may still have this gene inside us, creating antibiotic-resistant superdiseases.

Importantly, Haemophilus are what are called fastidious bacteria, meaning they need an iron source to grow, and unlike most other bacteria, they usually get it from the hemoglobin in our blood to which iron is bonded (giving blood its red color). Protecting the blood cells through the use of something like sida is crucial in treating this kind of infection.

The speedy evolution of antibiotic resistance is not surprising, because bacteria multiply fast and are present in enormous numbers, so that any mutation that can make a cell resistant is sure to occur in a few bacteria in a population; if the bacteria are able to survive the change to their cell functions caused by the mutation and to multiply, a resistant population can rapidly build up.

The fairly recent discovery that all of the water supplies in the industrialized countries are contaminated with minute amounts of antibiotics (from their excretion into water supplies) means that bacteria everywhere are experiencing low doses of antibiotics all the time. This exposure is exponentially driving resistance learning; the more antibiotics that go into the water, the faster the bacteria learn.

Without sex, the only way for bacteria to adapt is through mutation, which is caused by reproductive error or environmental damage. Most mutations are hurtful; they make for even less successful bacteria—though eventually, with luck, a mutation would arise that made for a more heat-resistant bacterium. Asexual adaptation is problematic because the dictate of the world, “Change or die,” runs directly counter to one of the primary dictates of life: “Maintain the integrity of the genome.” In engineering, this type of clash is called a coupled design. Two functions of a system clash so that it is not possible to adjust one without negatively affecting the other. In sexual reproduction, by contrast, the inherent scrambling, or recombination, affords a vast scope for change, yet still maintains genetic integrity.

Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. Dr. Fleming noted as early as 1929 in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology that numerous bacteria were already resistant to the drug he had discovered, and in a 1945 New York Times interview, he warned that improper use of penicillin would inevitably lead to the development of resistant bacteria. Fleming’s observations were prescient. At the time of his interview just 14 percent of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria were resistant to penicillin; by 1953, as the use of penicillin became widespread, 64 percent to 80 percent of the bacteria had become resistant and resistance to tetracycline and erythromycin was also being reported. (In 1995 an incredible 95 percent of staph was resistant to penicillin.) By 1960 resistant staph had become the most common source of hospital-acquired infections worldwide.

Because Gram-positive bacteria have only a single cell wall, even though it’s thicker, they are, in general, much easier to treat. With Gram-negative bacteria, two cell walls have to be penetrated, not just one. In essence, the bacteria have two chances to identify and deactivate an antibacterial that is hostile to them. Even if an antibiotic gets into the periplasmic space, it usually will not kill the bacteria. It still has to penetrate the second wall.

bacterium added to the yogurt was Lactobacillus reuteri—in a form particularly resistant to digestion. Within six weeks, their levels of bad LDL cholesterol sank by 8.91 percent. That’s about half the improvement attained by taking a mild anti-cholesterol drug—but without the side effects. Studies using other types of bacteria lowered cholesterol levels by as much as 11 to 30 percent. Follow-up research still needs to be carried out to verify these promising indications.

Another way is via genetic engineering. Here the germ is inserted into plasmid that has been manipulated by scientists. This type of plasmid is circular segments of DNA extracted from bacteria to serve as a vector. Scientists can add multiple genes and whatever genes they want into this plasmid. In case of vaccines, this includes a genetic piece of the vaccine germ and normally a gene for antibiotic resistance. This means that when the toxic gene is cultured inside the yeast, it has been designed with a new genetic code that makes it resistant to the antibiotic it’s coded for. The gene-plasmid combo is inserted into a yeast cell to be replicated. When the yeast replicates, the DNA from the plasmid is reproduced as a part of the yeast DNA. Once enough cells have been replicated, the genetic material in the new and improved yeast cell is extracted and put into the vaccine. Examples of this vaccine are the acellular pertussis and hepatitis B vaccines. One thing that doesn’t seem to concern scientists is the fact that the manmade genetic combination becomes the vaccine component. This mixture of intended and unintended genetic information may cause our immune system to overreact. This can be especially complicated for a child with compromised immune system. Another concern is that this new genetic code can become integrated with our own genetic material. Yeast, for instance, is very much like human DNA. It shares about one third of our proteins.

antibiotics, the more opportunity they have to develop resistance. What you are left with after a course of antibiotics, after all, are the most resistant microbes. By attacking a broad spectrum of bacteria, you stimulate lots of defensive action. At the same time, you inflict unnecessary collateral damage. Antibiotics are about as nuanced as a hand grenade. They wipe out good microbes as well as bad. Increasing evidence shows that some of the good ones may never recover, to our permanent cost.

Enterococcal organisms cause urinary tract infections, bacteremia, bacterial endocarditis, diverticulitis, and meningitis. The primary herbs to treat them are sida, alchornea, cryptolepis, bidens, ginger, echinacea, juniper berry, usnea, Artemisia annua, honey (I know, it’s not exactly an herb), licorice, oregano oil, and Acacia aroma. If you are treating a really tough vancomycin-resistant enterococcal infection, add ginger juice to your formulation; it strongly inhibits resistance mechanisms in these bacteria.

A number of other studies have been conducted on the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers and all have found comparable outcomes. For example: 60 people with limb-threatening diabetic infections were split into three groups: 1) full-thickness skin ulcer; 2) deep-tissue infection and osteomyelitis; 3) gangrenous lesions. All ulcers in group 1 healed and 92 percent of those in group 2 healed. All people in group 3 healed after surgical excision, debridement of necrotic tissue, and treatment with honey ointment (which also included royal jelly).

And, irritatingly, bacteria are generating resistance to antibiotics we haven’t even thought of yet. For example, after placing a single bacterial species in a nutrient solution containing sublethal doses of a newly developed and rare antibiotic, researchers found that within a short period of time the bacteria developed resistance to that antibiotic and to twelve other antibiotics that they had never before encountered—some of which were structurally dissimilar to the first. Stuart Levy observes that “it’s almost as if bacteria strategically anticipate the confrontation of other drugs when they resist one.

For almost twenty years, one of the Brocks’ two new bacteria, Thermophilus aquaticus, remained a laboratory curiosity until a scientist in California named Kary B. Mullis realized that heat-resistant enzymes within it could be used to create a bit of chemical wizardry known as a polymerase chain reaction, which allows scientists to generate lots of DNA from very small amounts—as little as a single molecule in ideal conditions. It’s a kind of genetic photocopying, and it became the basis for all subsequent genetic science, from academic studies to police forensic work. It won Mullis the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993.

You’re just living a normal life — never been sick, never been unhealthy, and all of a sudden you are fighting for your life. And this is happening to individuals every day,” Thomas said. The infection went to her blood stream and bone marrow and caused septic shock and organ failure. After undergoing multiple surgeries including a bone-marrow transplant and a “never-ending cycle of antibiotics,” she survived the ordeal.1​➔​ Thomas survived relatively intact. Some don’t, losing limbs in a desperate bid to stop the infection from spreading and then living permanently debilitated lives. Others aren’t even that “lucky.” Denis

We are not talking just about dollars and cents. We are talking about lives. Consider one chilling example: drug-resistant infections. As America’s breakthroughs in antibiotics recede into the past, bacteria are evolving to defeat current antibiotics. For more and more infections, we are plunging back into the pre-antibiotic era. In the United States alone, two million people are sickened and tens of thousands die each year from drug-resistant infections—mostly because private companies see little incentive to invest in the necessary research, and the federal government has failed to step in.87 Though federal funding for the National Institutes of Health ramped up in the mid-1990s, it has fallen precipitously since, cutting the share of young scientists with NIH grants in half in roughly six years.88 As one medical professor lamented recently: “In my daily work in both a university medical school and a public hospital, it’s a rare month that some bright young person doesn’t tell me they are quitting science because it’s too hard to get funded. . . . A decade or two from now, when an antibiotic-resistant bacteria or new strain of bird flu is ravaging humanity, that generation will no longer be around to lead the scientific charge on humanity’s behalf.”89

When the drug vancomycin falls completely by the wayside, as it will, we may, just as Stephen predicts here and I have predicted elsewhere, fall back on the bimillennial biblical medicinal herbs such as garlic and onion. These herbs each contain dozens of mild antibiotic compounds (some people object to using the term “antibiotic” to refer to higher plant phytochemicals, but I do not share their disdain for such terminology). It is easy for a rapidly reproducing bug or bacterial species to outwit (out-evolve) a single compound by learning to break it down or even to use it in its own metabolism, but not so easy for it to outwit the complex compounds found in herbs.

The final misconception is that evolution is “just a theory.” I will boldly assume that readers who have gotten this far believe in evolution. Opponents inevitably bring up that irritating canard that evolution is unproven, because (following an unuseful convention in the field) it is a “theory” (like, say, germ theory). Evidence for the reality of evolution includes: Numerous examples where changing selective pressures have changed gene frequencies in populations within generations (e.g., bacteria evolving antibiotic resistance). Moreover, there are also examples (mostly insects, given their short generation times) of a species in the process of splitting into two. Voluminous fossil evidence of intermediate forms in numerous taxonomic lineages. Molecular evidence. We share ~98 percent of our genes with the other apes, ~96 percent with monkeys, ~75 percent with dogs, ~20 percent with fruit flies. This indicates that our last common ancestor with other apes lived more recently than our last common ancestor with monkeys, and so on. Geographic evidence. To use Richard Dawkins’s suggestion for dealing with a fundamentalist insisting that all species emerged in their current forms from Noah’s ark—how come all thirty-seven species of lemurs that made landfall on Mt. Ararat in the Armenian highlands hiked over to Madagascar, none dying and leaving fossils in transit? Unintelligent design—oddities explained only by evolution. Why do whales and dolphins have vestigial leg bones? Because they descend from a four-legged terrestrial mammal. Why should we have arrector pili muscles in our skin that produce thoroughly useless gooseflesh? Because of our recent speciation from other apes whose arrector pili muscles were attached to hair, and whose hair stands up during emotional arousal.

What are these evolutionary changes? At the simplest level, the development of exceptionally sophisticated resistance mechanisms in all the bacterial populations of the world. In response to the impact of not me on the bacterial me, bacteria have begun generating tremendously sophisticated behavioral and physical responses. Bacteria have literally begun rearranging their genomes. As those genomes shift, their physical structures alter, sometimes considerably. It has been two and a half billion years since anything approaching this degree of change has occurred in the bacterial populations of Earth. But this kind of response is inevitable in any self-organized system; as Francisco Varela et al. observe, a biological network will reconfigure itself to an unspecified environment in such a way that it both maintains its ongoing dynamics and displays a behaviour that reveals a degree of inductive learning about environmental regularities.5

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things—taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many—those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance—our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.

The Hospital for Infectious Diseases...The only people who lived here were those who made resistance to germs their only reason for being. Unceasing approbation of life; a rough, rude approbation that did not care at all about appearances. An approbation of life beyond law and beyond morality, dramatized and incessantly demanded by delirium, incontinence, bloody excrement, vomit, diarrhea, and horrible odors. This air which, like a mob of merchants hosting bids at a produce auction, craved in every second the call: "Still alive! Still alive!"...This mass off active bodies, unified by the unique form of existence they bore, namely, contagious disease. Here the value of men's lives and germ's lives frequently came to the same thing; patient and practitioner were metamorphosed into bacteria - into such objectless life. Here life existed only for the sake of being affirmed; no prettier desire was allowed. Here happiness reigned. In fact, here happiness, that mostly rapidly rotting of all foods, reigned in its most rotten, most inedible form.

Ancestors To tell the truth, we should not exist. We, not any collective plural, just you and me. Let us use our imaginations to visualize for a moment the circumstances and conditions of the life of our parents, then our grandparents, then great-grandparents, thus further and further back. Even if among them all there happened to be wealthy individuals or men of privilege, the stench and filth in which they lived, as that then was the rule, would have astonished us who use showers and toilets. What was even more certain was among them the presence of starvelings, for whom a piece of dry bread in pre-harvest time meant happiness. Our ancestors died like flies from epidemics, from starvation, from wars, though children swarmed, for every twelve of them only one or two survived. And what strange tribes, what ugly snouts behinds you and me, what bloody rites in honor of gods carved in the trunk of a linden tree! Back to those who are stalking through the undergrowth of a murky primeval forest with chipped stones for their only weapons, in order to split the skulls of their enemies. It would seem as if we had only parents and that's all, but those other pre-pre-predecessors exist, and with them their afflictions, manias, mental illnesses, syphilis, tuberculosis, and whatnot, and how do you know they do not continue on in you? And what was the probability that among the children of your great-great-grandparents the one survived who would beget your ancestor? And what the probability that this would repeat itself in the next generation? Altogether, a very slim chance that we would be born in these skins, as these, not other, individuals, in whom the genes met those of the devil knows what whores and oafs. The very fact that our species survived and even multiplied beyond measure is astonishing, for it had much against it, and the primeval forest full of animals stronger than humans may serve till now as a metaphor for man's precarious situation - let us add viruses, bacteria, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, but also his own works, atomic weapons and the pollution of nature. Our species should have disappeared a long time ago, and it is still alive, incredibly resistant. That you and I happen to be part of it should be enough to give us pause for meditation.

In 1969, NASA scientist James Lovelock noticed something unusual happening in the earth’s atmosphere: inexplicably, its balance of oxygen and other gases was regulating itself like a thermostat. But what was doing the regulating? He looked at other planetary processes—including the stable concentration of ocean salinity and the cycling of nutrients—and came to a startling conclusion: the earth is alive. He proposed that the earth is a superorganism—one giant living system that includes not just animals and plants but rocks, gases, and soil—acting together as if the planet was a single living being. Its bodily systems, such as the water cycle and nitrogen cycle, are balanced to maintain life on earth. The throb of the tides was the systole and diastole of the earth, and water coursed like blood through its veins. We proud humans may simply be microbes on the surface of a superbeing whose entirety we cannot fully comprehend. Like the bacteria in our body, is it possible that we, too, are part of a larger living earth, a speck on the eyeball of the universe? Tree roots break the sidewalk. Dandelions spring through the cracks. Insects grow resistant to pesticides

Plants have long been, and still are, humanity’s primary medicines. They possess certain attributes that pharmaceuticals never will: 1) their chemistry is highly complex, too complex for resistance to occur — instead of a silver bullet (a single chemical), plants often contain hundreds to thousands of compounds; 2) plants have developed sophisticated responses to bacterial invasion over millions of years — the complex compounds within plants work in complex synergy with each other and are designed to deactivate and destroy invading pathogens through multiple mechanisms, many of which I discuss in this book; 3) plants are free; that is, for those who learn how to identify them where they grow, harvest them, and make medicine from them (even if you buy or grow them yourself, they are remarkably inexpensive); 4) anyone can use them for healing — it doesn’t take 14 years of schooling to learn how to use plants for your healing; 5) they are very safe — in spite of the unending hysteria in the media, properly used herbal medicines cause very few side effects of any sort in the people who use them, especially when compared to the millions who are harmed every year by pharmaceuticals (adverse drug reactions are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association); and 6) they are ecologically sound. Plant medicines are a naturally renewable resource, and they don’t cause the severe kinds of environmental pollution that pharmaceuticals do — one of the factors that leads to resistance in microorganisms and severe diseases in people.

The level of uniform germplasm throughout the world, we’re just waiting for some bacteria or fungus to find a spot of vulnerability. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Eventually it will catch up with us.

The development of antibiotics is one of the most successful stories in the history of medicine, but it is unclear whether its ending will be a completely happy one. Fleming prophetically warned in his 1945 Nobel lecture that the improper use of penicillin would lead to its becoming ineffective. The danger was not in taking too much; it was in taking too little to kill the bacteria but “enough to educate them to resist penicillin.

Arendt even believes to have identified danger signals “that man may be . . . on the point of developing into that animal species from which, since Darwin, he imagines he has come.”6 She assumes that all human activities, if viewed from a sufficiently remote point in the universe, would no longer appear as deeds but as biological processes. Accordingly, for an observer in outer space, motorization would resemble a biological mutation: the human body surrounds itself with a metal housing in the manner of a snail—like bacteria reacting to antibiotics by mutating into resistant strains.

just as bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics, the flu virus is beginning to develop resistance to NAIs, specifically to oseltamivir: Spanakis N, Pitiriga V, Gennimata, V, et al. “A review of neuraminidase inhibitor susceptibility in influenza strains.” Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther 2014;12:1325–36. Nitsch-Osuch A, Brydak LB. “Influenza viruses resistant to neuraminidase inhibitors.” ACTA BP 2014;61:505–8. 77:

As I’ve discussed, prebiotics are the food components that feed and nourish the good bacteria in the gut, like fiber and resistant starch.

No matter that both colds and flu are the work of viruses, not bacteria, and antibiotics can’t touch them. Or that the majority of colds will burn themselves out in days or weeks, without risk to life or limb. As antibiotic resistance becomes an ever more serious problem, the pressure is on doctors to be judicious in their prescribing habits. There’s plenty of room for improvement. In the US in 1998, three-quarters of all the antibiotics doled out by primary care doctors were for five respiratory infections: ear infections, sinusitis, pharyngitis (sore throat), bronchitis and upper respiratory tract infections (URI). Of the 25 million people who went to their doctor about a URI, 30 per cent were prescribed antibiotics. Not so bad, you might think, until you realise that only 5 per cent of URIs are caused by bacteria. The same goes for sore throats; 14 million people were diagnosed with pharyngitis that year, and 62 per cent of them were given antibiotics. Only 10 per cent of them would have had bacterial infections. Overall, around 55 per cent of antibiotic prescriptions given out that year were unnecessary.

The primary herbs to use to treat the condition, listed in order of strength against the organism, are the berberine plants, cryptolepis, isatis, usnea, lomatium, licorice, and echinacea. Because juniper berry is active against C. perfringens, I would suggest its use for C. difficile as well.

The plant loves disturbed places, especially agriculturally disturbed fields, and actively tries to colonize cultivated land. It is allelopathic (toxic to other plants) and can reduce domesticated crops up to 50 percent once it invades a planted field. It is considered highly noxious in scores of countries just for that reason. The plant has very few natural predators. I like it.

Wherever antibiotics and overcrowded or ill animal life meet in large numbers, resistance cascades occur: nursing homes, day care centers, homeless shelters, prisons, inner cities, animal hospitals, and factory farming operations. But they aren’t the worst. In spite of the apparent cleanliness of hospitals, the white coats, the quiet voices, the surety of purpose, the truth is that there is no place on Earth that contains more resistant bacteria.

The alkaloids in cryptolepis are water soluble, but if the pH of the water is alkaline, the alkaloids will not dissolve well.

For there is no place else on Earth where so many sick people congregate. No place else where so many pathogenic bacteria congregate. And there is no place else where the bacteria will experience such a multiplicity of antibiotics.

tincture is the strongest form of the herb as medicine. The use of piperine as a synergist will increase the potency of the plant considerably.

you are treating a systemic infection by a Gram-negative bacteria, the use of an endotoxin scavenger and protectant is often important. Isatis (though not discussed in this book) is perhaps the best herb for this (ginger is also good). It should be included if endotoxin release may be a problem.

The tincture and the hot-water extract are the strongest medicinal forms of sida for internal use.

As Erich Fromm once commented: “Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions.”3​➔

consider this plant, along with alchornea, sida, and bidens, to be the primary systemic herbal antibiotics for use in treating resistant organisms at this time.

important. Isatis (though not discussed in this book) is perhaps the best herb for this (ginger is also good). It should be included if endotoxin release may be a problem.

The importance of systemic herbal antibacterials cannot be overstated.

Considerable research has taken place to determine the potential adverse reactions from using the plant, and none have been found,

For this plant to act as a potent antimicrobial, it must be prepared as a tincture of the fresh plant or the fresh juice must be used.

it may well be that many sidas contain similar constituents. If so, given their wide range, they would be one of the world’s most accessible systemic herbal antibacterials.

And the most dangerous place of all? Well, it’s your average hospital. For there is no place else on Earth where so many sick people congregate. No place else where so many pathogenic bacteria congregate. And there is no place else where the bacteria will experience such a multiplicity of antibiotics.

In regard to the aetiology of infectious diseases we must abandon the notions conceived in time of Koch, Ehrlich and Pasteur on the 'pathogenic' nature of the microorganisms of external and internal media. In the full sense of the word it is not the bacteria themselves that are pathogenic, but those physiological correlations which exist in the given organism at a particular moment and which are organically connected with the disturbances in its regulative systems and nervous mechanisms. There are no special 'pathogenic' microbes in nature; there are, however, no end of factors that promote susceptibility in a normally resistant subject, and vice versa.

Chlorophyll: builds a high red blood cell count helps prevent cancer provides iron to organs makes the body more alkaline counteracts toxins eaten improves anemic conditions cleans and deodorizes bowel tissues helps purify the liver aids hepatitis improvement regulates menstruation aids hemophilia condition improves milk production helps sores heal faster eliminates body odors resists bacteria in wounds cleans tooth and gum structure in pyorrhea eliminates bad breath relieves sore throat makes an excellent oral surgery gargle benefits inflamed tonsils soothes ulcer tissues soothes painful hemorrhoids and piles aids catarrhal discharges revitalizes vascular system in the legs improves varicose veins reduces pain caused by inflammation improves vision

It is abundantly clear that our planet is warming. But not only the warming itself will change our world as we know it. We are already seeing changing weather patterns with extreme weather and droughts. We are already in the middle of three pandemics: The HIV/Aids pandemic is slowly retreating, the seventh cholera pandemic that started in the 1960s is still not under control, and the tuberculosis pandemic infects roughly one third of the human population. The World Health Organization warns about the spreading of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria with 900,000 cases each year. Microbiologists warn about the spreading of antibiotics-resistance genes in a great number of pathogenic bacteria, and they expect us to reach a point when antibiotics are no longer effective. Think of Victorian London with diseases like syphilis, cholera, typhus — there were no antibiotics available back then and a lot of people died a gruesome death.  What has disease to do with climate

We live in a global village, Neel, where billions of voices babble simultaneously, and in this village a new hierarchy is being established, a new caste-system is being created. Only this time, it is money that sets the tone. Whoever has the most money buys the biggest loudspeaker and is the neo-Brahmin of this new world order. If the ninety-year-old neo-Brahmin on the other side of the earth is terrified of antibiotic resistant flesh-eating bacteria, we must think twice before offering treatment to a twenty-four-year old here. These are the new rules of our global village.

Perhaps, I thought, the dead god gets folded into the existence of the new god, the way a dormant genetic variation can exist within an organism’s DNA—hanging about like an actor’s understudy until the right environmental conditions give it expression and—hey presto—suddenly a bacteria is heat resistant, our Chloe gets her big break on Broadway and a sniper for hire gets an unexpected half a meter of cold steel through the chest. Perhaps

resistant fiber Resistant fiber is the new kid on the block. It is a unique type of starch that is digested, but only many hours later and only by the good bacteria. Also known as resistant starch, this fiber contains calories, but the majority of its calories are not usable and therefore cannot cause weight gain. Resistant fiber is remarkable since it creates little or no insulin response, unlike any other carbohydrate. In fact, it can even produce less of an insulin response than many non-carbohydrate foods like meat, poultry, and eggs. For this reason, many of the low-carb breakfasts on the Adrenal Reset Diet include foods high in resistant fiber. BEST SOURCES: Boiled potatoes, cannellini beans, navy beans, great northern beans, and unripe bananas.

To avoid having to use the toilet more than you normally do, be sure to take with you a fair amount of Imodium A–D. Standards of hygiene in China are not as high as in the West. Our bodies have also not developed a resistance to the bacteria common in China. If you eat at the better restaurants in the major cities, you likely will experience no digestive issues. But should you be struck by what we call Mao Zedong’s Revenge, you will want to avoid spending valuable sightseeing time getting all too familiar with Chinese toilets!

Sixty years on, we know that HGT is one of the most profound aspects of bacterial life. It allows bacteria to evolve at blistering speeds. When they face new challenges, they don't have to wait for the right mutations to slowly amass within their existing DNA. They can just borrow adaptations wholesale, by picking up genes from bystanders that have already adapted to the challenges at hand. These genes often include dining sets for breaking down untapped sources of energy, shields that protect against antibiotics, or arsenals for infecting new hosts. If an innovative bacterium evolves one of these genetic tools, its neighbours can quickly obtain the same traits. This process can instantly change microbes from harmless gut residents into disease-causing monsters, from peaceful Jekylls into sinister Hydes. They can also transform vulnerable pathogens that are easy to kill into nightmarish 'superbugs' that shrug off even our most potent medicines. The spread of these antibiotic-resistant bacteria is undoubtedly one of the greatest public health threats of the twenty-first century, and it is testament to the unbridled power of HGT.

But even in these more innovative cultures, great swaths of even the most intelligent people can fight off change with every fiber of their being—as evidenced among scientists by the staunch resistance to the notion of neurogenesis in adult humans, and opposition to the idea that bacteria could cause ulcers.

In 2020 a team at MIT used AI to develop a powerful antibiotic that kills some of the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria in existence. Rather than evaluate just a few types of antibiotics, it analyzed 107 million of them in a matter of hours and returned twenty-three potential candidates, highlighting two that appear to be the most effective.[

Three Ways to Eradicate SIBO Three main methods are used to eradicate SIBO: taking prescription antibiotics, natural antimicrobials, and the elemental diet. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each of these treatment methods. Eradication Option #1: Prescription antibiotics. Rifaximin is the antibiotic most commonly recommended for SIBO. Xifaxan is a brand name of Rifaximin that is commonly prescribed. While I’m not a big fan of antibiotics, Rifaximin is different than most other antibiotics. First, it is a nonabsorbable antibiotic whose activity is localized to the small intestine due to its minimal systemic absorption. Thus, unlike most other antibiotics, Rifaximin doesn’t go through the bloodstream, but only acts in the small intestine and won’t harm the bacteria of the large intestine. Evidence shows that Rifaximin might actually increase good bacteria (e.g., bifidobacteria) in the large intestine.[4] In addition, bacterial resistance isn’t too common when using Rifaximin. However, some people with SIBO will respond to Rifaximin, and they will need to consider either the elemental diet or herbal antimicrobials. Also, if someone has high methane levels, Rifaximin alone usually won’t successfully eradicate SIBO, which is why most medical doctors will recommend an additional antibiotic, such as metronidazole or neomycin.

We have increased our population to the level of 7 billion and beyond. We are well on our way toward 9 billion before our growth trend is likely to flatten. We live at high densities in many cities. We have penetrated, and we continue to penetrate, the last great forests and other wild ecosystems of the planet, disrupting the physical structures and the ecological communities of such places. We cut our way through the Congo. We cut our way through the Amazon. We cut our way through Borneo. We cut our way through Madagascar. We cut our way through New Guinea and northeastern Australia. We shake the trees, figuratively and literally, and things fall out. We kill and butcher and eat many of the wild animals found there. We settle in those places, creating villages, work camps, towns, extractive industries, new cities. We bring in our domesticated animals, replacing the wild herbivores with livestock. We multiply our livestock as we've multiplied ourselves, operating huge factory-scale operations involving thousands of cattle, pigs, chickens, ducks, sheep, and goats, not to mention hundreds of bamboo rats and palm civets, all confined en masse within pens and corrals, under conditions that allow those domestics and semidomestics to acquire infectious pathogens from external sources (such as bats roosting over the pig pens), to share those infections with one another, and to provide abundant opportunities for the pathogens to evolve new forms, some of which are capable of infecting a human as well as a cow or a duck. We treat many of those stock animals with prophylactic doses of antibiotics and other drugs, intended not to cure them but to foster their weight gain and maintain their health just sufficiently for profitable sale and slaughter, and in doing that we encourage the evolution of resistant bacteria. We export and import livestock across great distances and at high speeds. We export and import other live animals, especially primates, for medical research. We export and import wild animals as exotic pets. We export and import animal skins, contraband bushmeat, and plants, some of which carry secret microbial passengers. We travel, moving between cities and continents even more quickly than our transported livestock. We stay in hotels where strangers sneeze and vomit. We eat in restaurants where the cook may have butchered a porcupine before working on our scallops. We visit monkey temples in Asia, live markets in India, picturesque villages in South America, dusty archeological sites in New Mexico, dairy towns in the Netherlands, bat caves in East Africa, racetracks in Australia – breathing the air, feeding the animals, touching things, shaking hands with the friendly locals – and then we jump on our planes and fly home. We get bitten by mosquitoes and ticks. We alter the global climate with our carbon emissions, which may in turn alter the latitudinal ranges within which those mosquitoes and ticks live. We provide an irresistible opportunity for enterprising microbes by the ubiquity and abundance of our human bodies. Everything I’ve just mentioned is encompassed within this rubric: the ecology and evolutionary biology of zoonotic diseases. Ecological circumstance provides opportunity for spillover. Evolution seizes opportunity, explores possibilities, and helps convert spillovers to pandemics.

You know, it scares me. I mean, allergies are one thing. But all these surplus antibiotics are raising people’s tolerances, and it won’t be long before the stuff just doesn’t work anymore. There’s all sorts of virulent bacteria that are already resistant.... It’s like back to the future—we’re headed backward in time, toward a pre-antibiotic age.

To see why soil is crucial, we need to understand how it works. Soil is created over time, as carbon-rich plant and animal residues are broken down by insects and millipedes, then by bacteria. The organic matter that’s left is a storehouse of carbon and also nutrients for plants. Healthy, undisrupted soil contains a network of subterranean pores, the work of plant roots, fungi, and earthworms. These microtunnels allow roots to extend more deeply into the soil and help the soil retain water, making it more drought resistant.

The following are all foods you should feel welcome to eat freely (unless, of course, you know they bother your stomach): Alliums (Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Scallions): This category of foods, in particular, is an excellent source of prebiotics and can be extremely nourishing to our bugs. If you thought certain foods were lacking in flavor, try sautéing what you think of as that “boring” vegetable or tofu with any member of this family and witness the makeover. Good-quality olive oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil can all help with the transformation of taste. *Beans, Legumes, and Pulses: This family of foods is one of the easiest ways to get a high amount of fiber in a small amount of food. You know how beans make some folks a little gassy? That’s a by-product of our bacterial buddies chowing down on that chili you just consumed for dinner. Don’t get stuck in a bean rut. Seek out your bean aisle or peruse the bulk bin at your local grocery store and see if you can try for three different types of beans each week. Great northern, anyone? Brightly Colored Fruits and Vegetables: Not only do these gems provide fiber, but they are also filled with polyphenols that increase diversity in the gut and offer anti-inflammatory compounds that are essential for disease prevention and healing. Please note that white and brown are colors in this category—hello, cauliflower, daikon radish, and mushrooms! Good fungi are particularly anti-inflammatory, rich in beta-glucans, and a good source of the immune-supportive vitamin D. Remember that variety is key here. Just because broccoli gets a special place in the world of superfoods doesn’t mean that you should eat only broccoli. Branch out: How about trying bok choy, napa cabbage, or an orange pepper? Include a spectrum of color on your plate and make sure that some of these vegetables are periodically eaten raw or lightly steamed, which may have greater benefits to your microbiome. Herbs and Spices: Not only incredibly rich in those anti-inflammatory polyphenols, this category of foods also has natural digestive-aid properties that can help improve the digestibility of certain foods like beans. They can also stimulate the production of bile, an essential part of our body’s mode of breaking down fat. Plus, they add pizzazz to any meal. Nuts, Seeds, and Their Respective Butters: This family of foods provides fiber, and it is also a good source of healthy and anti-inflammatory fats that help keep the digestive tract balanced and nourished. It’s time to step out of that almond rut and seek out new nutty experiences. Walnuts have been shown to confer excellent benefits on the microbiome because of their high omega-3 and polyphenol content. And if you haven’t tasted a buttery hemp seed, also rich in omega-3s and fantastic atop oatmeal, here’s your opportunity. Starchy Vegetables: These hearty vegetables are a great source of fiber and beneficial plant chemicals. When slightly cooled, they are also a source of something called resistant starch, which feeds the bacteria and enables them to create those fantabulous short-chain fatty acids. These include foods like potatoes, winter squash, and root vegetables like parsnips, beets, and rutabaga. When was the last time you munched on rutabaga? This might be your chance! Teas: This can be green, white, or black tea, all of which contain healthy anti-inflammatory compounds that are beneficial for our microbes and overall gut health. It can also be herbal tea, which is an easy way to add overall health-supportive nutrients to our diet without a lot of additional burden on our digestive system. Unprocessed Whole Grains: These are wonderful complex carbohydrates (meaning fiber-filled), which both nourish those gut bugs and have numerous vitamins and minerals that support our health. Branch out and try some new ones like millet, buckwheat, and amaranth. FOODS TO EAT IN MODERATION

The over-use of antibiotics is also causing more bacteria to become resistant. Today, 70 percent of microbes held responsible for lung illnesses no longer respond to medications.180 The increase in resistance prompts the pharmaceutical sector to conduct more intensive research for new antibiotics. But the discovery of such molecules is a long, difficult and costly process (about $600 million per molecule).181 For many years, no important new antibiotic has come onto the market. At the same time, increasingly stronger preparations are being introduced, which only leads to the bacteria becoming even more resistant and excreting even more toxins.

The speckled moth changes its wing coloring; bacteria develop drug resistance. Why should this count in favor of the thesis that whales are derived from ungulates, or men from fish?

For example, one of the triumphs of twentieth-century progress was the discovery of antibiotics, which ended many of the plagues and endemic illnesses that had caused suffering and death since time immemorial. However, it has been pointed out almost from the outset by critics of ‘so-called progress’ that this triumph may only be temporary, because of the evolution of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. This is often held up as an indictment of – to give it its broad context – Enlightenment hubris. We need lose only one battle in this war of science against bacteria and their weapon, evolution (so the argument goes), to be doomed, because our other ‘so-called progress’ – such as cheap worldwide air travel, global trade, enormous cities – makes us more vulnerable than ever before to a global pandemic that could exceed the Black Death in destructiveness and even cause our extinction.

Hm. A dal bean curry, eh? It looks similar to Chana Masala, a Punjabi dish that uses chickpeas... ! This viscous stickiness...!" "It's Natto!" Gooey texture and savory flavor are melding together inside my mouth! Was natto ever this delicious? "Wait... this is no normal natto! Could it be..." "Yes, sir. This natto I made by hand using charcoal smoke. It's charcoal-aged natto. After I added the natto spores to a batch of soybeans, I stored them in an underground room. There I lit a charcoal fire and then kept the room at just the right temperature and humidity to ferment the soybeans. As this process takes several days to complete, I prepared it ahead of time, over my summer break." "The carbon dioxide generated by the charcoal fire impacts the maturation of the soy proteins. It gives the natto a richer flavor. It also halts bacteria death in the beans, preventing the typical smell of ammonia from developing!" "Did you know all that?" "I heard a little about it once. It's supposed to be a really hard process that takes loads of time to finish!" "And she made it by herself?!" "But that isn't all. There's another flavor--- a deeper, more savory one that resonates across the tongue like a deep bass chord." "Oh, that? As a special hidden seasoning, I added shoyu koji." SHOYU KOJI Instead of salt, soy sauce is added to the koji bacteria and mixed with the rice until thick. Then it is left to ferment at a constant temperature for several weeks. So that's the black stuff that was in that jar! Shoyu koji has over ten times glutamic acid---an umami component--- than shio koji does. I see. While the strong flavor of curry spices drowns out most other seasonings, shoyu koji's flavor is powerful enough to that it is instead a savory magnifier! Her curry takes full advantage of her detailed knowledge of fermentation techniques! It is truly a magnificent dish! "The creamy Japanese-style curry roux has blended in with the natto's gooeyness beautifully!" "The mound of crisp, minced green onion on top is hard to resist as well!"

They’re also a danger to us all, because they help foster the evolution of increasingly drug-resistant bacteria in our bodies and in the environment

I was born in a dumpster, in an alley behind a dive bar. A wee speck of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, baptized by saliva from a hospital orderly, clinging to a wedge of pizza crust. Honestly, I didn’t want to hurt anyone—certainly not the Norwegian rat who gobbled me with his yellowed fangs, feeding me a banquet of liquefied refuse. We’d both gotten a bad rap, MRSA and rats.

Furthermore, a cell has no ability to improve its basic function. Bacteria that becomes resistant to antibiotics are still bacteria. Fruit flies that develop mutations are still fruit flies. Moths that change color are still moths. Birds that develop longer and shorter beaks are still birds. Therefore, one organism has no natural ability to change into another organism. (chapter 10)

We had already realized from the disaster on Mars that transplanting Earth ecology wouldn't work. Crops would not grow without specific symbiotic fungi on their roots to extract nutrients, and the exact fungi would not grow without the proper soil composition, which did not exist without certain saprophytic bacteria that had proven resistant to transplantation, each life-form demanding its own billion-year-old niche. But Mars fossils and organic chemicals in interstellar comets showed that the building blocks of life were not unique to Earth. Proteins, amino acids, and carbohydrates existed everywhere. The theory of panspermia was true to a degree. I had found a grass resembling wheat on our first day on Pax, and with a little plant tissue, a dash of hormone from buds, and some chitin, we soon had artificial seeds to plant. But would it grow? Theory was one thing and farming was another. Then a few days before the women had died from poisoned fruit, Ramona and Carrie had seen the first shoots, ...

Basically, if a bacterium survived an assault by a virus, it copied parts of the viral genes and inserted them into its own genome, as the 36-letter spacers in the repeat regions. This gave the bacteria resistance to any subsequent attacks by the same virus.