2 weeks Ago By George Citroner
Researchers from Iowa State University have found that dietary zinc supplements may help prevent bacteria from sharing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, potentially offering a new approach against a growing global public health threat. “We have been treating bacterial infections with antibiotics for many years, but we are now facing the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, including resistance to the last-resort antibiotics we’ve developed,” Melha Mellata, a microbiologist at Iowa State University and senior author on the study, told The Epoch Times. “Unfortunately, we are not developing new antibiotics at a sufficient rate because when we create an antibiotic, bacteria inevitably adapt and become resistant,” she added.
A particularly concerning aspect of AMR is that bacteria can share resistance genes, meaning patients may be resistant to multiple antibiotics before treatment even begins. This is the first study to demonstrate zinc’s ability to prevent AMR plasmid transfer between bacteria, Mellata said. Unlike antibiotics, zinc supplementation at low doses doesn’t appear to harm beneficial gut bacteria.
“We observed that when we combined the vaccine with probiotics, there were significantly fewer bacteria containing plasmids with antimicrobial resistance,” Mellata said. This observation prompted the team to investigate other oral interventions, including dietary supplements. Laboratory Findings Show Promise They conducted experiments using avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (E.
coli) with multidrug-resistant plasmids, testing their interactions with a plasmid-free human E. coli. In the past, Mellata and her team focused on targeting bacteria directly, but her “recent research highlights the importance of gut microbiota in overall health,” she noted.
Disrupting the gut microbiome with antibiotics can lead to additional health issues—a fact familiar to anyone who has experienced antibiotic-related digestive problems, Mellata added. A New Approach to an Urgent Crisis? According to Mellata, given the growing threat of AMR, innovative solutions like this could be essential in altering the trajectory of infection treatment and prevention in the future. “By removing these resistance genes, we can solve the antibiotic efficacy problem [and] allow antibiotics to work as intended,” Mellata said.
“We could save a lot of money and, more importantly, save lives.”.
