The Cancer Journal - Volume 9, Number 5 (September-October 1996)
Academic medicine breeds resistant microbes - Microbial resistance to
antibiotics is a growing threat to patients. Academic medicine is breeding a
destructive device, the hospital strain. A dangerous microbe, resistant to all
antibiotics, that evolves in a Darwinian fashion (1).
Microbe breeding does not differ from cattle breeding, where the best parents
are selected for mating. Here, antibiotic treatment selects parents that endow
their progeny with antibiotic resistance. Microbe breeding is unintended and
unwanted and can be averted only by a total ban on antibiotics, which is unthinkable
since medicine and our society are addicted to antibiotics. The hospital strain
highlights an inadequacy of academic medicine, total subjection to technology.
By breeding hospital strains, academic medicine is iatrogenic and dangerous
to patients. The threat may, however, be alleviated in several ways: by boosting
our resistance to microbes, e.g., vaccination, by relying more on the wisdom
of our body in handling microbes (2) (3),
and by mobilizing our own flora.
Microbes ensure our existence on earth - Pasteur and other microbe hunters
taught us that microbes are enemies that should be destroyed. Yet these tiny
creatures are responsible for our existence. They appeared on earth one billion
years after its formation. For 3.5 billion years they prepared our planet for
the evolution of all life-forms (4). Their most important
achievement was the maintenance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
without which life would not have evolved. Today they are the first and most
important link in the food chain of our planet. Solar energy trapped by plants
is converted mainly into cellulose, that is indigestible by us, since we lack
cellulose-degrading enzymes. Cellulose is degraded solely by microorganisms.
Microbes and degradation products are ingested by protozoa. These in turn are
ingested by higher live forms and so on. At the high end of this food chain
are the animals that serve as our food.
The intestinal eco-system - Microbes are everywhere, and inhabit our
skin and intestine. The newborn baby receives its microbial flora from its mother,
that already infects it at birth. Bifido-bacterium and Lactobacilli are the
first to colonize its gastrointestinal tract (4). Then come the facultative
anaerobes, such as Escherichia coli and Streptococcus fecalis, that are followed
by strictly anaerobic bacteria, e.g., Bacteroides. At the time of weaning, populations
of obligate anaerobes become dominant. The development of our personal microbial
community, known as primary succession, involves an ordered sequential change
in the microbial populations of the community. Succession ends when the community
consists of up to 400 different species, and attains homeostasis. It is stable,
resists any change in its content, and repels unwelcome microbes like the hospital
strain.
Eco-system evolution is a complex process that repeats itself in every growing
child. By infecting the baby, its mother transmits to it the best microbial
populations that she has gathered. It is a vertical inheritance of a protecting
eco-system that is adapted later to the needs of the adult. In the intestine,
anaerobic bacteria outnumber aerobic bacteria by 100:1 or 1,000:1 (5).
Since anaerobes preferentially colonize the intestinal mucous layer, they might
hinder aerobes from accessing the mucous layer and crossing it.
Antibiotics induce an ecological catastrophe in the intestine - Antibiotics
disrupt our stable ecosystem, that either adapts to the trauma or is invaded
by resistant microbes. It is an ecological catastrophe like water pollution.
Changes observed in the "ailing" ecosystems are called secondary succession.
Clinically, this catastrophe is manifested by "antibiotic associated-diarrhea",
a pseudo-membranous colitis caused by Clostridium difficile (6).
Its overgrowth is also induced by combination chemotherapy, and radiotherapy
of the lower abdomen. In 20% of treated patients diarrhea may relapse several
times, particularly following vancomycin, and metronidazole treatment. Treatment,
called bacteriotherapy, or biotherapy, attempts to restore the original eco-system.
This idea was raised last century, by Metchnikov, who noted that lactobacilli
inhibit the growth of putrefactive organisms. He concluded that fermented milk,
e.g., yogurt, kefir, or buttermilk, might be good for diarrhea. Today, live
bacteria, e.g., L. acidophilus and L. bulgaricus, in dried form, are given as
granules or packed in capsules. Their effect was examined in several clinical
trials (6). Other treatments include enema of mixed microbe populations, and
biotherapy with yeast.
Apparently some microorganisms may activate heterocyclic amines, and make them
carcinogenic (7). If so, by preventing their access
to the intestine, our eco-system might also protect us against cancer. This
could be also the rationale for diets rich in fibers. These examples illustrate
the importance of our microflora, a yet neglected organ, that waits to be explored
(8). p
Gershom Zajicek
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microflora in bioactivation of food-borne heterocyclic amine carcinogens. J
Natl Canc Inst 86, 5, 1994.
8. Bocci V. The neglected organ: bacterial flora
has a crucial immunostimulatory role. Persp Biol Med 35, 251-260, 1992.