Combat resistant bacteria with extracts of chestnuts

Chestnut extract as antibiotic alternative
For years experts of the World Health Organization (WHO) warn of the advance of antibiotic resistance. Many research laboratories around the world are looking for alternatives to common drugs. Scientists from the USA have now achieved impressive results with ingredients of sweet chestnut.

For years antibiotic resistance has been warned
Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) have long warned against the progression of antibiotic resistance. While such medications used to be the number one choice in diseases such as lung or bladder infections, many of them are barely effective today. The WHO even warned a few months ago that a post-antibiotics age without weapons could be facing infection. Worldwide, many scientists are busy with the search for alternatives. At the end of last year, researchers from Switzerland reported that they could use liposomes to develop a possible alternative to antibiotics. And US scientists have said they have now achieved promising results with chestnuts.

Ingredients of the sweet chestnut have an antibiotic effect. (Image: photocrew / fotolia.com)

Extract of sweet chestnut as a possible antibiotic alternative
Now scientists around Cassandra Quave of the Emory Universityin Atlanta put high hopes in the ingredients of the Esskastanie. In the journal "PLOS ONE" the researchers write that they were able to prove that an extract from the plant not only fights MRSA germs, but at the same time prevents the development of resistance. According to the information, the extract consists of 94 different ingredients, mainly from components based on ursans and oleanans, which belong to the so-called saponins. These substances are probably used by the plants as antibodies, for example against fungal attack or insects.

Not harmful to human skin
Together with her colleague Alexander Horswill from the University of Iowa, Quave showed in the study that the extract takes the bacteria of the species Staphylococcus aureus the ability to communicate with each other. The toxin production is completely blocked. Already a single 50-microgram dose of the agent rich to cure germ-infected wounds on the skin of mice, the researchers reported. According to the information, the extract did not lose any of its activity over time or the pathogens became resistant. As tests on human skin cells showed, the substances are not harmful to the skin. The scientists have already filed a patent. They hope that the extract from the sweet chestnut will one day be recognized as a drug and can help people. (Ad)