Sweet medicine

I was made aware of an interesting bit of information regarding the use of antibiotics in Quebec. The article mentions how guidelines put together by the Quebec health ministry and the Quebec medication council and distributed in both print and digital format to pharmacists and physicians influenced the prescription of antibiotics. I am guessing that using the same distribution channels, regulations and policies can be set and enforced more efficiently.

The reason this is important in the case of antibiotics is because the once "miracle medicine" has lost its luster. Some bacteria have evolved and developed resistant strands that render several antibiotics useless. This is evolution at its simplest form. Here's how it works bacteria reproduce really quickly using a process called mitosis. Basically, they create a duplicate of themselves, but with each generation, mutations or imperfect copies are introduced. Antibiotics are designed to kill the regular bacteria however, some may develop a mutation that neutralize the effect of the antibiotics on them. They can then keep on reproducing, creating more of the resistant offsprings.

The problem partly arose because we've blindly relied on medications. The more we use a certain antibiotic, the more we give bacteria a chance to adapt and create a resistant strand. Some bacteria have been exposed to several different antibiotics and have developed solution to so many of them that they are called "superbugs". By reducing the usage of antibiotics, we lessen the chance of seeing the apparition of such strands.

With that said, searchers are trying to find the next wave antibiotics, a group that will not have been introduced yet and to which bacteria will have no answers. Apparently, such medications could come straight out of honey. It makes sense right? Honey is in some respect just a lump of concentrated sugar. That alone could be enough to kill bacteria as it would suck the water out of them. But what really interests scientists is the diet of the honey-making bees. They want to study what plants the bees from several regions have been feeding on and then assess how these plants could help in the creation of new antibiotics.

I hope they succeed. If they do, that could make for some pretty tasty medicine.