Hospital Superbugs Can Be Brought Under Control by a Surprise Weapon – Zinc

Mirror ^ | 13 Apr 2023 | Miriam Stoppard

[nickcarraway]

X-ray research leads to surprise find - zinc affects the stability of cells in superbug and removing it kills them, writes Dr Miriam Stoppard

You might remember zinc best as zinc oxide, the thick white cream slathered on babies with nappy rash and used for burns, cuts and scrapes. It’s a good barrier cream to protect the skin.

But internally, zinc serves useful functions too – one of which is helping the production of healthy sperm. That’s because it promotes cell growth and multiplication, and supports the immune system.

Now, exciting research from Warwick University is pointing the way to its use against superbugs – bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

Acinetobacter baumannii (AB) is one of those and it can cause infections in the blood, urinary tract and lungs, or in wounds in other parts of the body.

It’s a particular problem in hospitals. Some patients can carry AB without any symptoms while in others the bacterium causes serious illness, and can even lead to death.

Unfortunately, many AB infections are resistant to antibiotics, making them difficult to treat.

But the Warwick research has found that zinc plays a key role in how AB cells form their shape and identifies this process as a new target for ­overcoming resistant infections.

Dr Carmina Micelli, who ­collaborated with researchers from Northwestern and Tufts Universities in the US, noticed the importance of zinc when she was studying a group of enzymes known as penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs), which control the shape of AB bacteria cells.

exciting as a whodunnit.

She said: “I was using X-ray ­crystallography to study PBPs when I noticed a single zinc ion in a particular structural part of PBP2. I knew this hadn’t been discovered before.

“When zinc was removed, the stability of PBP2 was reduced and resulted in

[Jane Long]

Gee....no kidding.

Zinc and Vitamin D ... the very dynamic duo...that Dr Zev Zelenko (RIP) tried to promote for China Virus....only to be maligned, by the FRAUDci and Co.

[Flaming Conservative]

You consider being threatened with losing one’s licence to practice if one dares use the alternative treatments, as NOT being banned? When a medical group or the government so threatens, I’d like to know what else you could call it. My own doctor told me that the government was threatening to send in medical auditors to medical offices and close practices (in this particular instance, concerning limits on how much doctors could prescribe opioids and anxiolytics to patients) after the FDA set “standards” -— limits, IOW -— for opioid doses. (Which, of course, they now claim limiting doctors’ practice decisions was not at all what they meant to do). The same kinds of stunts were being threatened regarding alternative civic treatments. And hospitals and hospital groups most certainly DID so threaten doctors.