Treatments for urinary tract infections that can replace antibiotics

urinary tract infectionsknown colloquially as urine infectionsare one of the most common diseases caused by bacteria. They are especially common in women and older people and although they usually occur without complications, in some cases they can spread to the kidneys and cause more severe symptoms. In any case, even if they are light, they very annoying. It is estimated that approximately half of women have had one of these infections. up to 32 years old. Some even suffer from them several times a year. And this is where the problem begins, because repeated use of antibiotics Eventually you may develop resistance.

For this reason, many scientists are trying to find alternative treatments for urinary tract infections that affect so many people. One of them, recently described by one of its discoverers in Talkbrings together knowledge in the field of microbiology and materials science of a group of scientists from Texas A&M University.

In general terms, they force beneficial bacteria to fight those that produce urine infections. It didn’t occur to them. The problem is that attempts to start this fight in the past have failed due to an obstacle that these researchers managed to avoid. Or so they think.

Fight bacteria to avoid urine infections

Our body has beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms it must remain in a balance in which the former stand above the latter. We can see this very well in the example of bacteria living in urinary tract or digestive system. All of them compete for nutrients limited to these tissues. In fact, they don’t just compete with each other. They also do this to themselves.

If the proportion of beneficial or even neutral bacteria is greater, then it is logical that they consume more nutrientsleaving pathogenic bacteria without resources to reproduce and making us sick.

Thus, urinary tract infections are often associated with an imbalance in the microbiota of the urinary system. The solution seems simple. This will involve adding more competitors against pathogenic bacteria. This has been tried many times, but there is a problem: urine.

Bacteria that enter the urinary tract exogenously are not able to attach to their walls, so their reproduction does not take much time. wash with urine. Therefore, to replace them you will have to constantly insert a catheter. This is not viable and will also be very annoying for patients.

This is where these scientists’ research comes into play. Their job is to develop a gel, similar to a piece of gelatin. 500 times smaller than a drop of water. Inside it is a population of bacteria. coliso that they are protected from being washed away by urine.

Works?

These scientists have not yet tested their invention on patients with urinary tract infections, but have already laboratory cultures. To do this, they took urine samples and added both pathogenic bacteria and a gel with bacteria to them. coli built-in non-pathogenic.

They noticed that by placing bacteria in ratio 50:50 That coli released from the gel, proliferated until 85%so that it has far surpassed pathogenic bacteria. In addition, beneficial bacteria continued to be released during two weeks.

But that’s not all. If instead of a 50:50 ratio the quantity coli more than the bacteria that cause urinary tract infections, the beneficial bacteria were located in 99% of the population.

All of this needs to continue to be tested, but the results are very promising. At the same time, there is no other choice but to take precautions such as drinking plenty of water, urinating whenever we want, and also after sexual relations. If it still cannot be avoided, there is no other choice but to resort to antibiotics. But always with your head.