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Did you know your body can make its own drugs ? Well, not really, but scientists are finding that our microbes are a rich source of molecules that act like drugs, newswise.com reports.   Bacteria that normally live in and upon us have genetic blueprints that enable them to make thousands of molecules that act like drugs, and some of these molecules might serve as the basis for new human therapeutics, according to UC San Francisco researchers. A bacteria found in the vagina might actually be used as an antibiotic, researchers found.   The antibiotic, lactocillin, is closely related to others already being tested clinically by pharmaceutical companies. Lactocillin kills several vaginal bacterial pathogens, but spares species known to harmlessly dwell in the vagina. This example suggests that there may be an important role for many naturally occurring drugs – made by our own microbes -- in maintaining human health, according to the senior author of the study, Michael Fis...

Blame it on the farm animals.  Or the doctors who prescribe them for colds.  But antibiotics have been so overprescribed and used in this world that kids are now developing infections that can no longer be treated by these wonder drugs -- and wind them up in the hospital, or worse. According to newswise.com, studies have shown " Infections caused by a specific type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise in U.S. children," and this bacteria -- that is very hard to treat -- is showing up primarily in children ages one to five. “Some infections in children that have typically been treated with oral antibiotics in the past may now require hospitalization, treatment with intravenous drugs, or both, as there may not be an oral treatment option available,” the Web site quotes Dr. Latania K. Logan, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics and pediatric infectious disease specialist at Rush University Medical Center. While the overall rate of...

Want to know why some antibiotics are no longer working and some infections are incurable?  Thank the doctors who, according to The Washington Post, are prescribing " up to three times as many antibiotics as doctors at other hospitals, putting patients at greater risk for deadly superbug infections, according to a federal study released Tuesday. Leah H. Sun at The Washington Post notes, "A bout one-third of the time, prescriptions to treat urinary tract infections and prescriptions for the drug vancomycin were given without proper testing or evaluation, or prescribed for too long, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Why?   One reason doctors may prescribe antibiotics more often than necessary is because they want to avoid withholding a prescription from a hospitalized patient ultimately found to have a bacterial infection, which can lead to sepsis, and ultimately death, University of Michigan doctors say in a new commentary, newswise.co...

You've probably heard over and over again that antibiotics only work on certain illnesses, not colds and sore throats.  I still wanted them when I had a terrible case of bronchitis, convinced it would stop my hacking cough, several years ago.  But scientists are now saying I was completely wrong, and they're hoping to educate the public once and for all. According to the Associated Press, "Repeated warnings that antibiotics don’t work for most sore throats and bronchitis have failed to stop overuse." But in a strange twist, probably just to shut patients up, doctors have been prescribing these drugs for "most adults seeking treatment at a rate that remained high over more than a decade, researchers found." The findings show reducing inappropriate prescribing “is frustratingly, disappointingly slow,” Dr. Jeffrey Linder, a physician-researcher at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the AP. Most sore throats and bronchitis are ca...

Eric Nelson notes at washingtontimes.com the number of people who die every year from infections that antibiotics couldn't cure -- 23,000, a figure released by the CDC last week. These people die each year from drug-resistant germs, what's called "antimicrobial resistance," a scary trend that's getting worse as bacteria continue to build up resistance to antibiotics.  As Nelson reports, "Common infections could become deadly, and diseases that were once curable will become more difficult and more expensive to treat." Where is all this antimicrobial resistance coming from?  Agriculture, where farmers feed these drugs to chickens who are cooped up together to prevent them from getting sick and passing it on, or to plump them up, to doctors who prescribe it for aggressive parents who think antibiotics cure a cold (they don't; colds are viral), to the numbers of prescriptions being written for ear infections and the flu and other illnesses that te...

Guess who's getting 70% of the antibiotics in this country?  No, not your son's constant ear infections. Chickens. That's right. Chickens And because of that,someday you may die of an infection because antibiotic-resistant bugs have become a common form of death, according to The Washington Post. Farmers feed their chickens antibiotics to cut down on infections when the chickens are all pressed together in a tight space to grow.  They've also used them to make fowl grow bigger, though the government is making them cut back on that. But, as the AP reports, 2 million people a year develop serious infections -- and 23,000 die.  For the first time, the CDC has estimated how many people die from drug-resistant bacteria each year — about as many as those killed annually by flu. Why? Because of the growing threat of germs that are hard to treat since they’ve become resistant to drugs. "Antibiotics like penicillin and streptomycin first became widely available...

Your son has a hacking cough and you want an antibiotic to soothe it.  You know colds are caused by viruses and therefore, not treatable with penicillin. But you want it, anyway. My husband, too, a dentist, sometimes prescribes antibiotics for patients when they're not really needed. But a new study  has found that doctors are prescribing 'way too many antibiotics -- and sometimes even, the wrong ones. All leading to, as we know, a huge wave of drug-resistant illnesses that may someday end up killing us because the meds just won't work anymore. "Recent studies have shown that doctors are over-prescribing broad-spectrum antibiotics, sometimes called the big guns, that kill a wide swath of both good and bad bacteria in the body," according to Sumathi Reddi. But they're not against all antibiotics, it turns out.  Narrow-spectrum antibiotics, like penicillin, amoxicillin and cephalexin, can usually clear up many infections, while targeting a smaller number o...