February 14, 2017.
The fruit of the pepper plant could offer a therapeutic alternative to the fight against antibiotic resistance. American researchers have just revealed the first encouraging elements of their research.
The pepper plant has just shown its effectiveness against MRSA
Resistance to antibiotics and the fear of a superbug capable of withstanding modern treatments is today the major concern of world health authorities, who are launching numerous projects all over the world, to find new therapies to counter this scourge. Science may have to turn to South America to find a miracle substance, used for centuries by local healers.
Researchers at Emory University in the United States looked at Brazilian red berries, scientifically dubbed “Schinus terebenthifolius” and found on a tree known as the Pepper Tree. They discovered that they would contain a compound capable of disarming the virulence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), one of the most commonly used antibiotics.
A bay that could save more than 10,000 people each year in the United States
This disease, feared by doctors, causes skin damage and serious infections that can be fatal. According to estimates, this superbug is the cause of the death of 11,000 people each year in the United States. This berry could represent a real hope for these patients and the first experiments carried out are very encouraging.
On mice, these researchers have indeed succeeded in preventing the appearance of lesions by repressing a gene used by bacteria, to communicate with each other. According to the initial findings of their research, this substance has the ability to ” disarm MRSA, preventing it from excreting the toxins it uses as weapons to damage tissue “, Explains Cassandra Quave, ethnobotanist, adding that thanks to the pepper plant, it is first” the body’s immune system which then becomes the best chance of healing the injury “.
Sybille Latour
Read also: Bacterial resistance: what alternatives to antibiotics?
