Phytotherapy increases the effectiveness of antibiotics

07/16/2014

Antibiotic resistance to bacteria is widespread. Researchers now investigated a combined dose of the antibiotic vancomycin with thymol and EDTA and were able to increase the efficacy of the antibiotic against the bacterium Escherichia coli by 16 times.

The present study investigates the combined action of thymol and EDTA (a chemical that binds ions) and the antibiotic vancomycin. In laboratory experiments, the antimicrobial activity against various bacteria and strains was investigated. Thymol showed a weak antibacterial activity against all bacteria tested.

In combination with thymol and EDTA, no increase in the efficacy of vancomycin against Staphylococcus aureus was observed. The bacterial species is one of the "hospital germs", the most common cause of infection and increasingly resistant to antibiotics (MRSA).

However, co-administration of EDTA and thymol increased the efficacy of vancomycin against the bacterium Escherichia coli by a factor of 16, although E. coli is normally not appreciably affected by vancomycin. Source: Carstens Foundation.

Picture: S. Hofschlaeger