Vitamin B3 May Help Kill Superbugs

Vitamin B3 May Help Kill Superbugs28 Aug 2012-nbsp;-nbsp;-nbsp;


Nicotinamide, commonly known as vitamin B3, may help the innate immune system kill antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria, the so-called "superbugs".

In lab work done with mice and human blood, researchers found high doses of the vitamin increased the ability of immune cells to kill the bacteria by 1,000

times.

The discovery opens the door to a new arsenal of tools for dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, such as those caused by methicillin-resistant

S. aureus or MRSA, that have killed thousands of people around the world. They are increasing in hospitals and nursing homes, and also rising in

prisons, among athletes, people in the military, and other places where many people are in close and frequent contact.

The team members behind the work are from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University (OSU), the University of

California Los Angeles (UCLA), and other research centers. They write about it in a paper published online this week in the Journal of Clinical

Investigation.

Potential for Use with Antibiotics

Co-author Adrian Gombart is an associate professor in the Linus Pauling Institute at OSU. He told the press the study could be very significant, but the results

have to be replicated in humans first:

"This could give us a new way to treat staph infections that can be deadly, and might be used in combination with current antibiotics," said Gombart.

"It's a way to tap into the power of the innate immune system and stimulate it to provide a more powerful and natural immune response," he

added.

Although antibiotics are very effective against bacterial infections, an increasing number of bacteria types, especially Staphylococcus aureus, are

becoming resistant to them, leaving fewer and fewer options for treatment.

Some believe the widespread use of antibiotics, coupled with mismanagement of their doses, creates an evolutionary pressure that helps increase the emergence

and spread of resistant strains.

One of the most common of these is MRSA, which the investigators included in this study.


Gene Mutation Causes Vulnerability to Bacterial Infection

A decade ago, Gombart discovered that a mutation of the C/EBP