Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks in the future and says I got
Speaker 1: a bug from you, girl, and I don't need a cure.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Voclban, and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And so, uh, you know, guys, have you ever been
Speaker 1: under the weather and had to go to the doctor
Speaker 1: and as part of that doctor's visit, you were prescribed
Speaker 1: to take some antibiotics? Sure? Yes, And so these antibiotics
Speaker 1: are meant to be medicine that makes us feel better
Speaker 1: and everything's cool and awesome, and so these I don't
Speaker 1: even know why we're doing an episode really honestly, because
Speaker 1: I mean they're like tic TACs, right, you just give
Speaker 1: them to everyone and then for everything exactly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're no longer able to see the color red. Here's
Speaker 1: some antibiotics. Yeah, okay, So antibiotics are specific types of
Speaker 1: medication to fight off bacteria. So before we get into
Speaker 1: anything about antibiotics, I thought all quick refresher on what
Speaker 1: bacteria are would be in order, right, So bacteria right there,
Speaker 1: Germs dirt. That's okay, Let's want to be a little
Speaker 1: more specific. Bacteria are micro organisms. Bacteria is the plural.
Speaker 1: A single bacteria would be a bacterium. So if you
Speaker 1: ever say, like if you're ever using it in the singular,
Speaker 1: you should be using bacterium instead of bacteria. Although most
Speaker 1: of the time you're not going to run into a
Speaker 1: singular bacterium. If you if you do run into a bacterium,
Speaker 1: the odds are in your favor because you are much larger.
Speaker 1: Because we're talking about single celled organisms, organisms that don't
Speaker 1: even have a nucleus. And when I say organism that
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about some form of plant life or
Speaker 1: animal life. Actually bacteria. It's its own classification, right right,
Speaker 1: and in fact are what we assume we're the very
Speaker 1: first forms of life on our planet. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different types of bacteria. So bacteria range
Speaker 1: from everything from a helpful bacteria that we have in
Speaker 1: our bodies, and by helpful I mean either it's completely
Speaker 1: neutral so it doesn't harm us, or it actually does
Speaker 1: help us in some way. We have a bacteria in
Speaker 1: our gut that help us break down complex sugars, for example,
Speaker 1: that's just one version, right, I think just by sheer number,
Speaker 1: your body cells are out numbered by bacteria cells. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: inside your body. Yeah, there's more of them than there
Speaker 1: are a few. I've got some interesting little stats here.
Speaker 1: For example, a single gram of soil typically contains about
Speaker 1: forty million bacterial cells, and a milli liter of fresh
Speaker 1: water just one millilter has about one million of them,
Speaker 1: and scientists estimate that the bacterial population of the entire
Speaker 1: Earth is somewhere in the neighborhood of five no nillion bacteria.
Speaker 1: You made that number, Uh yeah, what's a million? Okay,
Speaker 1: so I have to be more specific. Actually that's a
Speaker 1: great question because no nillion means two different things depending
Speaker 1: upon which definition you're looking at. Now, they're using the
Speaker 1: American definition, which means a one, Like if you're talking
Speaker 1: about one nillion, it'd be a one followed by thirty zeros.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about the British definition, it would be
Speaker 1: a one followed by fifty four zeros. So while a
Speaker 1: British nonillion is bigger than American nonillion, I guess there's
Speaker 1: some weird u uh you know, competition thing going on here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the American version. Oh yeah, that distinction
Speaker 1: was actually made in the Declaration of Independence, right, like
Speaker 1: we here red million, like we were dropping twenty four
Speaker 1: zeros from no nillion. Guys, it's the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: We all love Sherlock. Let's let's let's solve this problem.
Speaker 1: Let's get it together. Well, I think it was one
Speaker 1: of those. It was like, there were two main reasons
Speaker 1: for the American Revolution. There was the taxation without representation
Speaker 1: and they're just way too many zeros and a nonillion.
Speaker 1: So anyway, five no nillion bacteria on Earth. It's a
Speaker 1: huge number. I mean, that's a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: They are, you know, they dominate. Really, it's just that
Speaker 1: they're dominating on a scale that's too small for us
Speaker 1: to see without the use of a microscope, because these
Speaker 1: things are just a few micrometers in size. Now, still
Speaker 1: a bacteria or bacterium I should say a bacterium will
Speaker 1: dwarf a virus. Viruses are on the nanoscale, they're even tinier,
Speaker 1: and there are big differences between bacteria and a virus.
Speaker 1: You have to take that into account, and that's important
Speaker 1: when we talk about antibiotics because one of the problems
Speaker 1: with antibiotics is that sometimes, either through carelessness or an
Speaker 1: honest mistake or just lack of education, people will end
Speaker 1: up getting prescribed antibiotics to treat a viral infection, which
Speaker 1: don't work, y'all, because antibiotics aren't designed to fight viruses.
Speaker 1: They're designed to fight bacteria. Right, Depending on the kind
Speaker 1: of antibiotic that you're working with, it's going to be
Speaker 1: attacking a bacterium, I mean a single bacterium in this case,
Speaker 1: although a whole group of them at the same time,
Speaker 1: in one of a few different ways. Yeah. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: actually a couple of different major ways. So if you
Speaker 1: were to look at the Earth, you would not find
Speaker 1: any place on the Earth that is absent of bacteria,
Speaker 1: apart from something that had been specifically sterilized so that
Speaker 1: you're specifically killing all bacteria in that area. Because bacteria
Speaker 1: are really resilient, right they have You can find them
Speaker 1: like deep under the ocean in areas where magma from
Speaker 1: the inside of the earth is starting to leak in,
Speaker 1: and you'll find bacteria that exists through chemosynthesis in those areas.
Speaker 1: They're really resilient. They're actually bacteria that thrive in the
Speaker 1: hot springs of yellowstones like this scalding water. Well sure,
Speaker 1: I mean there are bacteria that can thrive in totally
Speaker 1: different environments from other bacteria. Oh sure, Yeah, It's not
Speaker 1: as though you can probably drop the bacteria in your
Speaker 1: gut into a hot spring and expect it to survive.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, it would probably be very upset in
Speaker 1: its own bacterial way for a very short amount of time,
Speaker 1: and then no longer be bacteria, like a little bacterial
Speaker 1: angel comes down and takes it off. Yeah. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we also, by the way, use bacteria in lots of
Speaker 1: ways to create certain types of food things like yogurt
Speaker 1: or cheese or vinegar pickles. So it's not like bacteria
Speaker 1: are all bad. You know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why we want bacteria around. We depend upon them.
Speaker 1: In fact, the oxygen we're breathing a lot that was
Speaker 1: generated by bacteria billions of years ago. So they also
Speaker 1: help break down, breakdown, potentially disease causing bits of decaying matter,
Speaker 1: which is terrific, right right, And they also can take
Speaker 1: the place like helpful bacteria can actually physically take the
Speaker 1: place that harmful bacteria would otherwise occupy in your body.
Speaker 1: So it's essentially saying like the club is full, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to leave you you can't come in, and
Speaker 1: the bad bacteria is like, oh, well shucks. Well, meanwhile
Speaker 1: the club is hopping with all the good backscia. So
Speaker 1: that's what the way you want it to happen, which
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons, by the way, that you
Speaker 1: don't want to overuse antibiotics, because eventually you will start
Speaker 1: clearing out the good bacteria along with the bad, which
Speaker 1: leaves room for bad bacteria to come in. Anyway, So
Speaker 1: we have the good bacteria and then we have what
Speaker 1: we call pathogenic bacteria, and all these are the bacteria
Speaker 1: that cause illnesses. And here's the thing. You can't just
Speaker 1: say that a bacteria is pathogenic or nonpathogenic. Those properties
Speaker 1: actually depend upon multiple variables, not just what type of
Speaker 1: bacteria and what type of host, but the condition of
Speaker 1: both the bacteria and the host at any given time.
Speaker 1: Right for example, the bacteria that cause something terrible like
Speaker 1: cholera aren't always going to cause cholera in a given person. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about how our bodies are essentially
Speaker 1: these kind of these kind of cauldrons of various types
Speaker 1: of bacteria. We have all these different populations living within us.
Speaker 1: They have a balance, right, It's kind of like the force.
Speaker 1: They're balanced in our bodies. So when the host has
Speaker 1: a well balanced microbiota going on, then things are cool.
Speaker 1: But if something were to tip that balance one way
Speaker 1: or the other, then some bacteria that normally would either
Speaker 1: be neutral or even helpful to us can in turn
Speaker 1: become harmful opportunistic. Yeah. So, and really, when you think
Speaker 1: about all bacteria are opportunistic, it's just a question of
Speaker 1: whether they're also pathogenic. But some bacteria are just just
Speaker 1: plain You don't want to come into contact with them
Speaker 1: right there. You don't want to get an infection because
Speaker 1: it can lead to some really serious outcomes. Right. For example,
Speaker 1: I've possibly talked a lot about Clustridium baculinum because I'm
Speaker 1: really obsessed with botulism. I mean not having it personally,
Speaker 1: but I just think it's a really fascinating pathogen. And
Speaker 1: you know, these critters, as a byproduct, create something that
Speaker 1: is toxic on the nanoscale to human people, right, which
Speaker 1: is I mean really cool in a science way, but
Speaker 1: also completely terrifying. Right. And so some of the diseases
Speaker 1: you've probably heard about that are caused by bacteria include cholera, dysentery, pneumonia, typhoid, tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: and the plague good times. But then, of course there
Speaker 1: are viral diseases too, right. The flu is a virus,
Speaker 1: for example, so flu is not bacteria related, it's a virus. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's also small pox and malaria, very serious
Speaker 1: diseases that are viral, not bacterial in nature. So it's
Speaker 1: important to make that distinction. And again with this the
Speaker 1: fact that the pathogenic mechanism isn't fully understood by doctors
Speaker 1: right now, I mean, we don't always know exactly what
Speaker 1: it is, what the mechanism is for a bacterium to
Speaker 1: cause illness to a host. Oh right, what sets off
Speaker 1: specifically a colony of bacteria in an organism from toggling
Speaker 1: that dormancy and how virulent they are? Right right? We
Speaker 1: don't have all the information on all of those factors,
Speaker 1: so it may treating these diseases somewhat of an inexact science,
Speaker 1: which leads us to antibiotics. That's one of the big
Speaker 1: ways that we treat bacterial infections and antibiotics essentially, that's
Speaker 1: talking about medication that's designed to either limit bacterial growth
Speaker 1: in some way or to actually kill off bacteria, and
Speaker 1: so it's kind of a you know again, it's it's
Speaker 1: not a very precise way of going in and treating something.
Speaker 1: It's effective, at least at first, but it's not it's
Speaker 1: not something that's based upon a deep understanding of what's
Speaker 1: going on on the bacteria level. Yeah, we don't want
Speaker 1: to demonize antibiotics since we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: dangers and the need to move past them in some situations,
Speaker 1: because antibiotics are kind of amazing. They have done amazing things.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, humanity, there's a pretty there's a pretty good
Speaker 1: chance that the people in this room would not exist
Speaker 1: because our parents or grandparents would not have lived if
Speaker 1: penicillin had not been not invented but discovered in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight. Yeah, yeah, that was Flemming, right, who discovered that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: Alexander Fleming in nineteen twenty eight discovered the antibacterial effects
Speaker 1: of penicillin. Penicillin itself had been discovered about a century before,
Speaker 1: but no one understood really bacteria at that point, so
Speaker 1: there wasn't a real deep understanding what was going on?
Speaker 1: Oh right, they realized that this fung guy was creating
Speaker 1: this byproduct that happened to make other stuff die around it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they didn't know why, right, And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: penicillin will prevent a bacterium from replenishing its own cell walls.
Speaker 1: It's like if you prevented skin from regrowing around your body,
Speaker 1: and so eventually the bacterium will burst and die, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was you know, that's actually a fairly common
Speaker 1: technique for the types of antibotics that are designed to
Speaker 1: actually kill bacteria. Those are you know, called bacteriaicidyl antibiotics.
Speaker 1: And then you have the type that are meant to
Speaker 1: just slow down growth, which are bacteria static antibiotics. Right.
Speaker 1: Those might prevent bacteria from multiplying or interfere with the
Speaker 1: formation of other subcellular structures. Right. So, antibiotics saved lives
Speaker 1: in the past, still saving lives today? Really useful? Is so?
Speaker 1: Are they? The answer? Is there nothing to worry about? Well,
Speaker 1: there are two problems here. One is that over time,
Speaker 1: no matter how you use antibiotics, some strains of bacteria
Speaker 1: start to develop resistance to those antibiotics. You know, growing
Speaker 1: sturdy or cell walls. And in the case of those
Speaker 1: bacterial cytyle right right, they or they might have some
Speaker 1: sort of they'll start to generate some other form of
Speaker 1: chemical that will help fight off the antibiotics and thus
Speaker 1: keep them more safe from those kind of things. And
Speaker 1: they can actually spread this across an entire population, oh sure,
Speaker 1: because they survive and multiply, right, so, and multiply real
Speaker 1: quickly exactly So in one hand, On one hand, you're
Speaker 1: eventually going to see various strains of bacteria develop resistance
Speaker 1: to different types of antibiotics over time, no matter what
Speaker 1: you do. However, if you poorly use antibiotics, as in
Speaker 1: you overuse, or you are improperly taking the antibiotics, like
Speaker 1: you don't take an entire course of antibiotics when you
Speaker 1: are prescribed one, like maybe you start feeling better and
Speaker 1: you think, oh well, I don't need to take any
Speaker 1: more medicine, so you stop these sort of tech These
Speaker 1: sort of behaviors lead to bacteria gaining that resistance much
Speaker 1: more quickly, and it's spreading much more across multiple populations
Speaker 1: of bacteria, thus creating a larger problem for us as
Speaker 1: a whole. Because now we've got strains of bacteria that
Speaker 1: we can't treat with the same antibiotics that we would
Speaker 1: have used maybe ten years ago, because they are naturally
Speaker 1: resistant to it. And so the more we use antibiotics poorly,
Speaker 1: the worse we make the problem. And it's a serious problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, this isn't a case of a couple people
Speaker 1: getting sicker than they otherwise would. The CDC estimates that
Speaker 1: every year, more than twenty three thousand people in the
Speaker 1: US alone die as a result of infection by resistant bacteria, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean, there's you really can't, you know, exaggerate
Speaker 1: how bad this problem could potentially become. So essentially, like,
Speaker 1: let's say that I, you know, I was saying earlier,
Speaker 1: like I was sick, and then I started feeling better,
Speaker 1: so I stopped taking my antibiotics. I'm feeling pretty good,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, Wow, there's no need for me to
Speaker 1: keep taking this. It's a hassle. I'm feeling fine, everything's good.
Speaker 1: The reason why your course of antibiotics would possibly extend
Speaker 1: further than the symptoms you're feeling is that those antibiotics
Speaker 1: are meant to try and kill off that population of
Speaker 1: bacteria as much as possible, and if you stop early,
Speaker 1: so you know you no longer are feeling the physical
Speaker 1: effects of being sick, but you've stopped before the baia
Speaker 1: antibiotics has run its course, uh to be a little repetitive.
Speaker 1: Then that population there may be some surviving members of it,
Speaker 1: and this is bacteria that has come into contact with
Speaker 1: that antibiotic and thus is more likely to form a
Speaker 1: resistance to that antibiotic in the future. So you didn't
Speaker 1: you didn't do the full job. You didn't kill off
Speaker 1: all the bad guys, and so the bad guys that
Speaker 1: are left are now stronger because they figured out what
Speaker 1: your your method of attack is, and then when they
Speaker 1: start making more bad guys, they all have this feature,
Speaker 1: this resistance. So that's that's one issue. Another issue, of course,
Speaker 1: like we said before, is if you were prescribed antibiotics
Speaker 1: for something that wasn't a bacterial infection, had no infection
Speaker 1: related problems there, uh, then that could also end up
Speaker 1: creating problems where it creates an imbalance in your system,
Speaker 1: thus giving the opportunity for bacterial infection to paradoxically attack
Speaker 1: you later, or it actually helps develop that resistance we
Speaker 1: were talking about where the bacteria in your body come
Speaker 1: into contact with this and start to develop that resistance. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you are still sick because a viral infection is totally
Speaker 1: different and is it going to be affected by antibiotics.
Speaker 1: So that's a double negative there, not in the grammatical sense,
Speaker 1: but in the sense that two bad things are happening.
Speaker 1: You're not getting better, and you're making your body more
Speaker 1: susceptible to future infection and ultimately possibly bringing other people
Speaker 1: into danger because the bacteria in your body that developed
Speaker 1: this resistance could eventually start spreading to other people. And then, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have a habit of not staying neatly in one
Speaker 1: place right now. Neat and bacteria are two things that
Speaker 1: rarely go together. So yeah, this is a big concern.
Speaker 1: And this isn't just something that we're concerned about. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are major organizations all around the world that are
Speaker 1: studying this and trying to come up with strategies to
Speaker 1: deal with it, and some of them get pretty scary,
Speaker 1: including the Center for Disease Control, which is located here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta or we are. And the CDC has identified
Speaker 1: a list a big list of various types of bacterial
Speaker 1: strains that are demonstrating resistance to antibiotics that we should
Speaker 1: be concerned about, and they categorize them into different levels
Speaker 1: of concern. So you want to hear the top three. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: So there's different levels. Some of them are like serious
Speaker 1: or concerning. And this is on the urgent list. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the top of the list, the most urgent.
Speaker 1: So urgent does not necessarily mean that these particular strains
Speaker 1: of bacteria are more deadly than another. It means that
Speaker 1: they may be more resistant to a larger array of
Speaker 1: antibiotics than other strains. Also, they may just be more prevalent.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these are prevalent in places you
Speaker 1: seriously do not want bacterial infections to go haywire, like hospitals,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean you're talking about people who may
Speaker 1: be coming out of surgery and they're very susceptible to
Speaker 1: various types of infection, right, their immune system has already
Speaker 1: been a topper compromised. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, if
Speaker 1: you've got any place where you're healing from something already,
Speaker 1: you're you're probably more susceptible to more damage. And you know,
Speaker 1: you're around all these other people who are sick, and
Speaker 1: people who could be accidentally transferring that sickness across the
Speaker 1: entire population within a hospital, other places that you would
Speaker 1: expect to see the sour stuff. Really, it's pretty much
Speaker 1: anywhere where a lot of people are going to be
Speaker 1: gathered together for long periods of time, particularly things like
Speaker 1: elder care facilities. And again that's extra dangerous because the
Speaker 1: people in those facilities tend to not be in the
Speaker 1: best health already, so it's a you know, it's really
Speaker 1: an actual danger. So here are the three that they identified,
Speaker 1: and I apologize ahead of time for the butchering of
Speaker 1: pronunciation I'm going to have for these various types of bacteria.
Speaker 1: So there's Clostridium difficile or CDF, which they this is
Speaker 1: one of those that in health care facilities is a
Speaker 1: real problem. It causes flu like symptoms and also abdominal pain, bloating, diary,
Speaker 1: and other really unpleasant stuff, and it can be life threatening,
Speaker 1: particularly if you're already trying to recover from something else.
Speaker 1: So that's a big one. Uh. Then we have anterio
Speaker 1: bacteria SIA, which is actually a broad classification of different
Speaker 1: types of bacteria, and it includes some that are completely
Speaker 1: harmless to people. You know, it's just they belong to
Speaker 1: the classification, but they don't cause pathogenic Yeah. But then
Speaker 1: there are pathogenic ones and they're big ones like salmonella
Speaker 1: or E. Coli. Those can be really nasty. And then
Speaker 1: there's nay syria gonorrhea, so that's that's gonerreea sexually transmitted disease.
Speaker 1: Those are the three that have developed the most, the
Speaker 1: most numerous strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria in popular reporting.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard about other diseases though, that come from
Speaker 1: antibiotic resistance bacteria. One of the ones that is uh
Speaker 1: most talked about is mrs A Right. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: methicillin resistant Staphylococcus arius. Yes, yep, I said it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you did it really well. First try. Well, that's not
Speaker 1: that much of a victory because that is actually the
Speaker 1: name of a horrible antibiotic resistant bacteria that manifests most
Speaker 1: often in nature. If you get this in the wild,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a skin infection, uh huh. But
Speaker 1: in hospitals, where a lot of these infections take place,
Speaker 1: that can show up as blood stream infections or something
Speaker 1: going wrong with the surgical incision. It's really nasty. Stuff,
Speaker 1: and it can be very dangerous. It can lead to
Speaker 1: to pneumonia, which is again very very serious for someone
Speaker 1: who is already in a compromised situation. Right, right, So
Speaker 1: we've got all the doom and gloom here the scary
Speaker 1: world where the drugs we're using to treat the disease
Speaker 1: or making these diseases stronger. I mean, that's kind of
Speaker 1: the layman version of what we're talking about. But let's
Speaker 1: earn a page and take a look. What are some
Speaker 1: of our options for either coming up with alternate ways
Speaker 1: of dealing with bacterial infections and bacterial populations, or to
Speaker 1: kind of guide us in our use of antibiotics in
Speaker 1: a more strategic and controlled way. We need better strategy,
Speaker 1: we do need. Yes, strategy is an all time low.
Speaker 1: We have to make that high. Yeah, we need to
Speaker 1: outsmart these brainless, single celled organisms, Lauren, What is the
Speaker 1: best strategory? Some researchers are working on this, and it's
Speaker 1: several years off yet. This is in relatively preliminary research,
Speaker 1: but they think that we can use something called quorum
Speaker 1: sense inhibition. Okay, So a quorum is when you get
Speaker 1: enough bacteria there to hold a vote, right, exactly, so
Speaker 1: if we can stop them from voting, We're okay, I
Speaker 1: think it kind of is like that. Actually, it kind
Speaker 1: of is. I'm making a joke, but in a way,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what we're talking about. It turns out
Speaker 1: that bacteria can communicate with one another through this quorum
Speaker 1: sensing thing, which means that they're producing and releasing these
Speaker 1: little bits of chemicals that are then absorbed by other bacteria,
Speaker 1: and therefore across a colony and across colonies of different
Speaker 1: kinds of bacteria can coordinate the way that they behave
Speaker 1: that that is, whether or not they decide to be dormant,
Speaker 1: whether or not they decide to be pathogenic. Right. They
Speaker 1: can actually express genes this way, right, Right, So it's
Speaker 1: fascinating and kind of completely terrifying because we had never
Speaker 1: thought we had classically thought that bacteria are just these
Speaker 1: completely senseless, brainless things that are just doing their thing individually.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that they work together really pretty effectively. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if you end up having one strain of bacteria start
Speaker 1: to develop resistance, then at least there's the potential for
Speaker 1: that resistance to spread to entirely different populations of bacteria
Speaker 1: through this kind of complex communication, or at the very
Speaker 1: least for a bacteria party to kind of form in
Speaker 1: a place where it otherwise wouldn't have because someone kind
Speaker 1: of rings the dinner bell, gotcha. So one thing that
Speaker 1: we might be able to do is disrupt this communication
Speaker 1: in some way. If we can figure out how to
Speaker 1: affect that communication, then we might be able to prevent
Speaker 1: a dormant bacterial strain from going pathogenic within a host,
Speaker 1: right by either preventing that communication by sending out false
Speaker 1: signals or by blocking the reception of those signals and
Speaker 1: other bacteria. Right. And as you were saying, this is
Speaker 1: very early in the research phase. We're talking about people
Speaker 1: doing tests on cultures in a dish in a lab, right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and they're still not sure how that how
Speaker 1: that's working an additional lab let alone. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: got years of research yet to go before we're going
Speaker 1: to be able to introduce this into especially a human host,
Speaker 1: and have any kind of predictability of how it's going
Speaker 1: to go. Right. So, but it's a promising potential method
Speaker 1: that we might use to deal with a bacterial infection.
Speaker 1: But it is certainly one that would be in the future,
Speaker 1: not something that we're going to see happen within this
Speaker 1: year or something along those lines. In the more near term,
Speaker 1: there are some some like I said, some organizations working
Speaker 1: on creating real strategies we can follow right now that
Speaker 1: will increase our ability to deal with bacterial infections and
Speaker 1: decrease the impact we make on creating antibiotic resistant strains
Speaker 1: of bacteria. The Center for Disease Control has a big
Speaker 1: report that details these sort of these source strategies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just put it out I think near the end
Speaker 1: of twenty thirteen, So this is really new, fresh, recent research.
Speaker 1: And the four main I guess pathways that they suggest
Speaker 1: are pretty common sense oriented, right. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: like you read something and think, oh, yeah, that's deep.
Speaker 1: That's deep. But these are the day basic things that
Speaker 1: if we follow these basic things, and by we, I
Speaker 1: mean human population as a whole, If we follow these basic,
Speaker 1: these basic strategies, then we can really reduce the impact
Speaker 1: of antibiotic resistance strains of bacteria really wreaking havoc. So
Speaker 1: those four things are number one, prevent infections and the
Speaker 1: spread of disease in the first place through immunization and
Speaker 1: promoting safe food handling practices as well as hand washing,
Speaker 1: and you know those basic hygiene and cleanliness standards that
Speaker 1: you need, particularly in places where you're preparing food or
Speaker 1: you're in a hospital, that kind of stuff to really
Speaker 1: help minimize the chance of infection in the first place.
Speaker 1: So if you don't have to treat an infection, that's
Speaker 1: the best type absolutely so. Then the second one is
Speaker 1: to create systems for tracking antibiotic resistant infections so that
Speaker 1: experts can develop strategies to limit or eliminate those strains, so,
Speaker 1: in other words, to identify when these are popping up
Speaker 1: and to really track their progress so that the people
Speaker 1: who our best at working in that particular strain can
Speaker 1: really concentrate on it. And the CDC is doing this already, sure,
Speaker 1: but it's really difficult to coordinate that kind of effort
Speaker 1: across countries, and especially in less developed countries than say
Speaker 1: the US or Britain, where we've got pretty robust organizations
Speaker 1: that help us do this. So it has to be
Speaker 1: a global effort, right. Then we have the third strategy,
Speaker 1: which is to improve the general use of antibiotics through
Speaker 1: education and practice. Now, this is what I was talking
Speaker 1: about before about over using antibotics and prescribing them for
Speaker 1: the wrong kinds of treatments. In some cases, you may
Speaker 1: not need an anabiotic to fight off a bacterial infection.
Speaker 1: Our bodies actually do have an immune system that can
Speaker 1: fight off bacteria. It's just sometimes those infections can get
Speaker 1: so strong that our bodies would have trouble doing it
Speaker 1: on their own, and that's when antibiotics are really important. Sure,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean that every time you get a
Speaker 1: bacterial infection you absolutely must have antibiotics. This is something
Speaker 1: that obviously you would have to come to a decision
Speaker 1: with your doctor. The doctor is going to be the
Speaker 1: expert on this, and you know, you just have to
Speaker 1: have that conversation and express a concern about the use
Speaker 1: of antibotics if it's something that you know, ask just
Speaker 1: an honest opinion, like in your medical opinion, is this
Speaker 1: the best course of action? Do I need this? Or
Speaker 1: am I going to recover without any undue discomfort to myself?
Speaker 1: I mean, because we're certainly not recommending that that people
Speaker 1: suffer through illness unnecessarily or just stop taking antibotics, because
Speaker 1: in some cases it is absolutely necessary. The trick here
Speaker 1: is to try and make sure that it's it's necessary
Speaker 1: or needed in whatever case you are in. So well,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, the whole point is preserving their
Speaker 1: effectiveness for when they are necessary, right or right right right.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's some doctors who essentially have been
Speaker 1: you know, put through this, this this kind of difficult
Speaker 1: situation where their patients are demanding that they have some
Speaker 1: sort of treatment so that their symptoms go away because
Speaker 1: you know, they don't want to be sick. That's perfectly understandable.
Speaker 1: And then the doctors are saying, well, antibiotics will knock
Speaker 1: it out. And you know, on a case by case basis,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's perfectly harmless. It's when you take
Speaker 1: it all into the collective that you really start seeing
Speaker 1: this problem growing. Right right, I want to add a
Speaker 1: little separate addendum to this point, which is anti bacterial soap.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, we should really reconsider our use of
Speaker 1: antibacterial soap. And that's not like an idea coming from me.
Speaker 1: This is something that health professionals have been saying for
Speaker 1: a long time. Yeah, And actually finally in December of
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, so just a few months ago, the FDA
Speaker 1: finally announced that manufacturers have to demonstrate that their products
Speaker 1: are both one better than plain soap and water, yep,
Speaker 1: which scientific research seems to indicate that they are not.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a trial that has said that antibacterial soap,
Speaker 1: with the exception of like in a hospital environment where
Speaker 1: it is very important where you're using like industrial strengths
Speaker 1: in the first place, sure has any benefit over regular
Speaker 1: sip and water. No, Yeah, so far's the science seems
Speaker 1: to suggest that plants open water is just as good, right,
Speaker 1: But also it's it has to be safe for human
Speaker 1: use and demonstrated to be safe for human use. So
Speaker 1: there's the big One of the big culprits is an
Speaker 1: antibacterial called trickles san or triclessan. So why why wouldn't
Speaker 1: these things be safe? Well, of course, one of the
Speaker 1: things is they could potentially be causing antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Speaker 1: We don't know that they are a cause of that,
Speaker 1: but I think that there it is highly suspected. And
Speaker 1: then the other thing is that they can potentially cause
Speaker 1: totally separate health problems like messing with hormone regulation and
Speaker 1: test animals, and the idea as well, if they're doing
Speaker 1: this to rats, and frogs and stuff, then there's very
Speaker 1: likely doing it to us. This also leads to just tangentially,
Speaker 1: but it's still within the same realm the idea of
Speaker 1: using antibiotics on animals like livestock. All right, and this
Speaker 1: is part of the argument that a lot of the
Speaker 1: more of more militant vegans and vegetarians, but also lots
Speaker 1: of people who are concerned about the treatment of animals
Speaker 1: in the farming industry are are concerned over because when
Speaker 1: you're keeping animals in a condition that necessitates the use
Speaker 1: of antibiotics in order to keep them healthy, A, that's
Speaker 1: not really good for the animals, and b's it's probably
Speaker 1: not good for us, so it's probably not good for anybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're a lot of different concerns, some of which are
Speaker 1: based on misinformation about using antibiotics with animals. In some cases,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely necessary if you want to try and save
Speaker 1: the life of an animal. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: of I'll say, there are some entities out there, whether
Speaker 1: they are landowners or large corporations or whatever, that use
Speaker 1: this broad spectrum approach to giving antibiotics to all the
Speaker 1: animals in order to make the best case for the
Speaker 1: animals never to get sick, so it's not even that
Speaker 1: they're treating of specific they're trying to prevent it from
Speaker 1: ever happening. So it's almost like they're using antibiotics as
Speaker 1: an immunization approach, which is not really they do. It's
Speaker 1: not a vaccine, it's not the same sort of thing. So, uh,
Speaker 1: that kind of issue is really serious, and it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily necessarily true that you're going to end up consuming
Speaker 1: antibiotics and get those antibiotics in your system. If you
Speaker 1: were to have, you know, to eat animals that had
Speaker 1: been treated that way, that's a possibility, but that's not
Speaker 1: the issue that I'm specifically talking about is that this
Speaker 1: actually helps create exactly, So, even if there is no
Speaker 1: chance that you are going to get these antibiotic components
Speaker 1: into your body, and even if they do not actually
Speaker 1: cause hormone changes in animals, it's still creating antibacterial resistant
Speaker 1: strains of bacteria. So no matter what, it's not good. Okay.
Speaker 1: So anyway, those those are three of the four strategies.
Speaker 1: The fourth one is to develop new drugs and diagnostic
Speaker 1: tests to both battle and measure antibiotic resistant bacteria. So
Speaker 1: this is just This is that medicine side of things.
Speaker 1: Where you have a bacterial strain that resists some antibiotics,
Speaker 1: perhaps the answer is to start to develop new antibiotics
Speaker 1: or combinations of antibiotics to use against that strain. Some
Speaker 1: study shows that using combinations of antibiotics decreases the chance
Speaker 1: that a bacterial strain will become resistant. Right, that's too complex.
Speaker 1: A lot of the terrific research that's kind of on
Speaker 1: the forefront, right. Yeah, So these are the things that
Speaker 1: we're really focusing on now. So it's not to abandon
Speaker 1: antibiotics entirely, because they are very important. It's just finding
Speaker 1: the best way the stewardship of antibiotics that is going
Speaker 1: to preserve their efficacy for as long as possible. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a scary topic, but it's an important
Speaker 1: one and it's one we really wanted to tackle because,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been in the news and like I said,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information out there too, and it's
Speaker 1: important for people to to get active, to look into
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff, to have those conversations with their
Speaker 1: healthcare providers. Yeah, make those personal choices that over population
Speaker 1: can absolutely make a difference. Yeah, And you know, I
Speaker 1: realized that when it comes to health we all want
Speaker 1: the best health care we can possibly get. And in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, some of well, I'll say some
Speaker 1: of us have probably in the past fallen victim to
Speaker 1: the more is better approach. That's not always the case.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the little u moral of the story
Speaker 1: I think here. But anyway, now that we kind of
Speaker 1: wrapped up that discussion, I just want to invite all
Speaker 1: of you guys out there listening to join in. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think, tell us your thoughts on this,
Speaker 1: or give us suggestions for things that you want to
Speaker 1: hear about. Stuff you know that's the future oriented that
Speaker 1: you're really excited about and we've never talked about. Let
Speaker 1: us know, we'll totally tackle that topic. You can email us.
Speaker 1: Our address is FW thinking at the Discovery dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop us a line on one of
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Speaker 1: that would include Google Plus, Twitter, and Facebook. We have
Speaker 1: the handle FW thinking at all of those, and don't
Speaker 1: forget go to fwthinking dot com to check out all
Speaker 1: the videos, the blog posts, the other podcasts. We've got
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff there that's really cool. I think
Speaker 1: you're really gonna love it, So go check that out
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you again really soon. For
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