News: Bacteria in Infants' Guts—& Their Antibiotic Use—Could Be Making Kids Chubbier
Overweight kids often become overweight adults. New research suggests a couple reasons why and suggested that there may be ways to intercept that fate.
Antibiotic Resistance Search Results
News: New 'Personalized Lotions' Made of Good Skin Bacteria Can Prevent Infections, Including MRSA
Most people know atopic dermatitis by its common name, eczema—that dry, flaky skin that itches incessantly. Along with the scratching comes frequent skin infections, often with Staphylococcus aureus.
News: Replacement Joints with Antibiotics on Board Mean Lower Chance of Infection & Fewer Surgeries
For about a million Americans each year, a joint replacement brings relief from pain and restored mobility. But, 5–10% of those people have to endure another surgery within seven years, and most of those are due to an infection in their new joint. If doctors could treat infections more effectively, patients could avoid a second surgery, more pain, and another rehabilitation.
News: Happy News: Common Drugs May Save You from MRSA
Staphylococcus aureus is a widespread bacteria — about a third of us have it on our body right now — usually in our nose or on our skin. And it probably isn't causing an infection. But, about 1% of people who have Staphylococcus aureus present have a type that is resistant to the antibiotic methicillin.
News: Antibiotics During Pregnancy Linked to Miscarriage
As if being pregnant did not come with enough worry, a new study found that certain antibiotics are linked to an increased risk of spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage — a terrifying finding for any expectant mother.
News: Hospital Floors May Look Clean, but They're Teeming with Deadly Superbugs—Including MRSA, VRE & C. Diff
Hospitals are places we go to get well, and we don't expect to get sick or sicker there. But a study from researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and Cleveland VA Medical Center in Ohio found that hospital floors in patient rooms were frequently contaminated with healthcare-associated pathogens—often dangerous multi-drug resistant bacteria.
News: Unique Way Gonorrhea Breaks Down the Female Body's Defenses
Usually, the mucus lining of the female genital tract presents a barrier that helps prevent infections. But, somehow, the bacteria that causes gonorrhea gets around and through that barrier to invade the female genital tract.
News: How Horseshoe Crabs Are Saving Us from Healthcare-Associated Infections
During the millions of years they've been on earth horseshoe crabs have developed a trick that can save our lives even now — and may be especially useful in the fight against healthcare-associated infections.
News: Rate of Dangerous Recurring Diarrhea Infection Skyrocketing by Almost 200%
Killing more than 29,000 people each year, infection with Clostridium difficile (C. diff or CDI) is the most common healthcare-associated infection in the US. In a disturbing development, new research reveals recurring cases of the infection are soaring.
News: Ticks Could Be the Culprits in Tragic Death of Two-Year-Old
In Indianapolis, two-year-old Kenley Ratliff has passed away from what is suspected to be Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), a tick-borne illness. The young girl fell ill with a fever, and just a week later, passed away. Now her family and doctors are looking into the cause of her death and warning others to check themselves for ticks this summer.
News: Hybrid Molecule Delivers 1-2 Punch to Find & Attack Nasty Staph Bacteria
Drug-resistant bacteria have made curing some infections challenging, if not nearly impossible. By 2050, it's estimated that 10 million people will be dying annually from infections with antibiotic-resistant organisms.
News: Climate Change Might Stir Up Dangerous Dust Microbiome
Just like your gastrointestinal tract, and the soil we walk on — a dust storm has a collection of bacteria, fungi, and viruses all its own called a "dust microbiome."
News: A Compound from This Florida Weed Could Kill Deadly MRSA Staph Infections
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but one annoying invasive weed may hold the answer to treating the superbug MRSA. Researchers from Emory University have found that the red berries of the Brazilian peppertree contain a compound that turns off a gene vital to the drug-resistance process.
News: Viral Infections Blur the Line Between Bacteria & Complex Life Like Plants & Animals
Using extreme time-lapse microscopy, scientists watched a virus take over a bacteria to create a cell that looked and functioned more like a plant or animal cell. True story.
News: Some Treatments for 'Chronic Lyme' Are More Deadly Than the Disease Itself
While Lyme disease can be disabling, the wrong treatment for the infection can be fatal.
News: Organic or Not, Your Produce Is Loaded with Bacteria, Inside & Out
We know that healthcare-related facilities can be fertile ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but recent research suggests your produce aisle might be too.
News: Fecal Transplants to Cure Infections — A Modern Take on a 1,700-Year-Old Idea
Bacteriotherapy sounds a lot more amenable of a term than "fecal transplant," yet they're both treatments that use bacteria itself to cure or treat infections. Fecal transplants, specifically, are an up-and-coming treatment option for a potentially deadly and difficult-to-treat diarrheal infection called Clostridium difficile.
News: Supercomputer's Simulated Patients Help Doctors Choose the Right TB Meds
The incidence of tuberculosis (TB) is dropping in the US, but the World Health Organization (WHO) considers it to be epidemic in the rest of the world — there were over 10 million new cases in 2016.
News: Dogs Provide Surprising Benefit to Infants' Gut Bacteria
For many of us, pets are important family members. They give us loyalty, companionship, and comfort. Now, researchers have given us another reason to welcome them into the family: Babies from families with furry pets — the majority of which were dogs — had higher levels of two types of beneficial gut bacteria.
Amazing Insects: Ants Create Chemical Cocktails to Brew Antibiotics
To keep fungal pathogens at bay in their crowded homes, wood ants mix potions to create powerful protection for their nest and their young.
News: Bioprospectors Make Unique Discovery INSIDE a Coal Fire That Makes an Antibiotic Better
Scientists are constantly on the search for new organisms, species, and other types of life. A special group of these researchers, calling themselves "bioprospectors," dive deep into mines to find unique lifeforms with special properties not found anywhere else.
News: Microbe That Causes Sepsis & Meningitis Has Mutated into a New Sexually Transmitted Disease
The ability of one microbe to adapt is giving it a whole new career as a sexually transmitted disease. Usually content with the back of the throat and nose of those who carry it, the dangerous pathogen Neisseria meningitidis has adapted to cause an illness that looks a lot like gonorrhea.
News: Like Peaches? Protective Virus Could Save Millions of Dollars in Fruit from Fire Blight
Peach trees and other related plants are susceptible to the devastation caused by fire blight, a contagious bacterial disease. Once contracted, infected trees have to be burned to contain the disease and prevent spread to nearby trees. Increasing resistance to antibiotic treatment has sent scientists in search of alternative ways to deal with the bacteria and prevent its catastrophic damage.
News: Scientists Surprised to Find New Defensive Role for Old Protein
Wound infections don't usually enter the blood and become systemic, spreading the infection throughout our bodies, and there's a good reason for that: Our bodies actively work to prevent it, according to research that discovered a new use for a protein first discovered decades ago.
News: Modern Life Means Less Gut Bacteria, More Chronic Disease
When you have an infection, a doctor prescribes antibiotics to make the bacteria that causes it disappear. Sounds like a good idea, but the disappearance of microorganisms that have inhabited humans for millennia could be driving rising numbers of serious illness and debilitating conditions.
News: Hospital Hid Superbug Outbreak in Neonatal Ward from Public
Over the past eight months, ten infants at UC Irvine Medical Center tested positive for the same strand of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Despite the danger of this superbug due to its high resistance to most antibiotics, this information was only released to the public on Thursday. Thankfully, all ten babies survived and are currently healthy.
News: New Finding Shows How Deadly, Flesh-Eating Strep Toxins Help the Bacteria Burrow Deeper into Tissues
Where in the world did it come from? All of a sudden, one day, someone had an infection with flesh-eating bacteria. It captured headlines and worldwide attention because it was such a severe, strange, uncontrollable, and really disgusting condition.
News: Bed Bugs Are Becoming Resistant to All of Our Insecticides—This Fungus Might Help
If you have encountered bed bugs lately, you are not alone. While the pesticides used to fight these pests are losing effectiveness, a fungus shows promise in knocking the bugs out of beds everywhere.
News: How an Innocuous Bacteria Lots of Us Have Turns into Deadly Meningitis & Sepsis
How can bacteria that lives in the throat of 10%–35% of people—without causing an infection—cause life-threatening meningitis and sepsis in others?
News: Treating Stomach Problems May Bring C. Diff Infection Back
Having a Clostridium difficile infection means stomach pains, diarrhea, fever, and loss of appetite, and if the symptoms weren't bad enough, the disease often reoccurs. Now, new research has found an increased risk of recurrence in people who take medication to treat their stomach acid, gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, or stomach discomfort.
News: The Next Big Antibiotic Could Come from the Gut of an Insect
No one can dispute the evolutionary success of bugs. The oldest insect fossils were found encased in crystallized mineral silica in Scotland in 1926, and they're between 396 and 407 million years old.
News: Beware Your Child's Sandbox — Dangerous Pathogens Could Be Playing There Too
For younger children, a day at the playground is not complete without some sandbox time. Long a favorite of children and parents, sandboxes could also be sheltering dangerous pathogens.
News: Microbots to the Rescue! Swimming Bots Kill Bad Water Microbes
Look no further than Flint, Michigan, to discover the serious consequences of contaminated drinking water. Around the world, water polluted by pathogens and toxins sickens people or cuts them off from safe drinking water. Looking for a solution, researchers created tiny, swimming robots that pack a powerful punch against waterborne pathogens.
News: Gut Bacteria Cocktail May Protect Cancer Patients & Pregnant Women Against Listeriosis
Listeria monocytogenes bacteria don't play fair. Healthy people can usually handle the food-borne infection, but the bacterial infection hits pregnant women, fetuses and cancer patients very hard. Interestingly, a new study found that other bacteria may help prevent Listeria infections in those people.
News: Bandages Made of Recycled Shrimp Shells Fight Infections & Stop Bleeding
An innovative new wound dressing has been developed by a research team at Lodz University of Technology in Poland that uses crustacean shells to create a bandage that packs an antimicrobial punch — and even more potential to help solve a global problem.
News: Standard Testing Frequently Misses UTIs — But Now We Have a Better Way
Have you ever had a burning sensation when you urinate? Low fever, back pain, and maybe cloudy urine? Male or female, it could have been a urinary tract infection. If it lasted long enough, the chances are good you went to the doctor for help. For about 20% of women, standard testing for a UTI does not reveal the presence of infection-causing bacteria, even though bacteria may be causing their symptoms. Well, a new test may provide better answers.
News: Frustrated by Acne? New Research Shows Skin Microbiome Makes a Difference
The squiggly guys in this article's cover image are Propionibacterium acnes. These bacteria live in low-oxygen conditions at the base of hair follicles all over your body. They mind their own business, eating cellular debris and sebum, the oily stuff secreted by sebaceous glands that help keep things moisturized. Everybody has P. acnes bacteria—which are commonly blamed for causing acne—but researchers took a bigger view and discovered P. acnes may also play a part in keeping your skin clear.
News: Hospitals Band Together to Fight Back Against Sepsis in Children
Sepsis is not only a gross sounding word but also a deceptively dangerous and fatal infection. Which is why more than 40 hospitals nationwide are coming together to a new collaboration to help reduce sepsis mortality, named Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO).
News: Our 11 Favorite Bacteria Art Submissions from ASM's Petri-Dish Picasso Contest
Think of the coolest, most unique way to create art that you can. Got it? Now think about creating that art out of living things.
News: World Malaria Day Reminds Us That The Fight Isn't Over
The theme for 2017's World Malaria Day, which is today, April 25, is "End Malaria for Good." For many Americans, this might seem like an odd plea. Especially since Malaria is seemingly an obsolete problem here. However, on World Malaria Day, it's important to remember the danger of malaria is still very much present in the US. And around the world, the disease is at the epicenter of a global crisis.