11 ms·
Silver makes antibiotics thousands of times more effective
- Fishkins 13y agoAlthough the title here closely matches the article title, it seems overstated/optimistic. The actual line in the article is "when boosted with a small amount of silver these drugs could kill between 10 and 1,000 times as many bacteria." That's a big range. Of course, this still could end up being quite useful.
- Retric 13y ago; but unfortunately silver also kills people. PS: yet another http://xkcd.com/1217/ http://xkcd.com/1217/
- steve19 13y agoThere are many people who are allergic to penicillin. That does not make it any less useful to the rest of the population. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin_drug_reaction http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin_drug_reaction
- Alex3917 13y ago> There are many people who are allergic to penicillin. That does not make it any less useful to the rest of the population. There are tons of delicious foods that you can't buy in any restaurant or store no matter how much you're willing to pay, because a small percentage of people are allergic or whatever. So the entire population gets essentially zero use out of them even though they could be useful to the vast majority of people. (In fact, restaurants/stores/farmers markets only carry only a small percentage of the total foods out there.) Similarly a ride at an amusement park that is safe for the vast majority of people is a ride that no one is going to be allowed to go on. Medicine is just a special case because doctors generally won't lose their license for killing the occasional patient, whereas, say, a restaurateur probably would.
- DenisM 13y agoPeanuts are fatal to some people, yet we eat them all the time. Here's a counter-example to your first claim. Another one is Fugu fish, which I personally ate at a restaurant, and which are known to be deadly if not prepared correctly. Rollercoaster is dangerous to anyone with weak skeleton, and can likely induce heart attack as can a horror movie. Here's a counter-example to your other claim. Do you have any examples that support your claims?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- cdman 13y agoAFAIK you can't actually eat "real" Fugu in any but the most select places. What you get as Fugu is a domesticated / non poisonous version usually.
- DenisM 13y agoThere's a small number of chefs in US who are certifie4d to prepare the real fugu, and I was visiting one of them. I did not find anything special in it, by the way. :)
- epo 13y agoMisrepresented fish is said to be common in the US (http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2013/02/21/fake-fish-on-shelves-and-restaurant-tables-across-usa-new-study-says/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2013/02/21/fake-fis...). How do you know you were getting fugu?
- Alex3917 13y ago> Peanuts are fatal to some people, yet we eat them all the time. Peanuts are banned from most schools. > Another one is Fugu fish, which I personally ate at a restaurant, and which are known to be deadly if not prepared correctly. That applies to most foods, e.g. tomatoes, rhubarb, etc. When is the last time you had chicken-of-the-woods in a restaurant though? Oh wait, never. Because 90% of people find them delicious, but the other 10% cyanose and then start projectile vomiting and shitting themselves. Of course on your own that's not a big deal because you just bioassay it on yourself first, but in a restaurant that doesn't work.
- bad_user 13y agoThe problem is strong antibiotics are often needed for severe infection outbursts and there isn't enough time to perform blood tests for alergic reactions.
- solox3 13y agoSilver exhibits low toxicity in the human body, and minimal risk is expected due to clinical exposure by inhalation, ingestion, dermal application.
- leoc 13y agoAnd if you're on last-ditch antibiotics then a certain level of risk or harm will be acceptable anyway.
- inafield 13y ago> silver also kills people Long before it kills anyone, it may turn them blue. And if that is happening, chances are you are taking way too much. Too much of any good thing is a bad idea.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI am surprised there aren't more body hackers turning themselves blue on purpose. Nothing says 'alien' like blue grey skin right?
- inafield 13y ago> Nothing says 'alien' like blue grey skin right? The ultimate Avatar cosplay.
- hcarvalhoalves 13y agoBecause Argyria makes you look more like a walking corpse rather than someone with a nice blue hue.
- pvaldes 13y agoIn fact you don't need to take too much silver to turn gray, it is accumulative so you can not suspect that you are taking too much, and you don't know when the effects will appear. Sometimes may appear many weeks after you take the silver. Is one of its well known dangers.
- nsxwolf 13y agoWould the bullet really kill microscopic cancer cells? Or just push them around? Do individual cells die from the pressure waves at that scale?
- Groxx 13y agoI would imagine it would at least kill the ones it hit directly, but otherwise... interesting question. Someone should test that, for science.
- pearjuice 13y agoHave fun with the biotics which will grow resistant after a while!
- pyre 13y agoI'm unsure what you point is. Our current antibiotics are already producing resistant strains. We can either develop something completely new, or lace existing antibiotics with silver. Unless you are in this field and have some insight to bestow on us, I don't know of any other approaches at the moment. Improving our current methods by bolstering them with silver could be what we need to gain a new advantage against resistant strains. Is it possible that we will eventually produce strains resistant to even this? Yes. Is the answer to just give up drop all attempts at antibiotics? Probably not.
- tnorthcutt 13y agoAt least part of the answer is to use antibiotics less, and to do more to ensure that when they are used, the full course is used.
- pyre 13y agoThis prevents production of more resistant strains, but we already have resistant strains out there. (Also, @pearjuice seemed to indirectly imply that the ability to improve our existing antibiotics was a bad thing)
- learc83 13y ago>but we already have resistant strains out there. But those resistant strains will be outcompeted by non-resistant strains without the presence of anti-biotics. There is a fitness cost to most resistance mechanisms [1] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20208551 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20208551
- derleth 13y ago> At least part of the answer is to use antibiotics less, and to do more to ensure that when they are used, the full course is used. If it gets bad enough, outpatient antibiotics use will be a thing of the past. Need antibiotics? You're staying in a facility where someone will monitor you and make sure you take the full course and don't make our resistance problems worse. It won't necessarily be a hospital and you won't necessarily be watched by doctors or nurses, but compliance will be mandatory and enforced. I hope it doesn't get that bad.
- nmc 13y agoGranted, including "could" in the title would have been less misleading, given they indeed mention a "10x to 1000x" range. But I think readers should focus more on the outstanding scientific progress than on the slightly-overselling title. Notably, the effect on bacteria membranes, and the ability to make antibiotics-resistant bacterias vulnerable to silver-buffed antibiotics.
- meritt 13y agoAhhh yeah, colloidal silver is making a comeback! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_uses_of_silver#Alternative_medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_uses_of_silver#Alternat...
- Alex3917 13y agoI'm afraid I just blue myself.
- kefka 13y agoAnd everybody is always hating on the Drow. Who would have figured they were just argyria sufferers.
- colanderman 13y agoFrom your link: "Colloidal silver preparations primarily deliver inactive metallic silver, rather than the active microbicidal silver ion." From TFA: "Collins and his team found that silver — in the form of dissolved ions — attacks bacterial cells"
- gngeal 13y agoObviously, it's the colloidal silver version of homeopathy! I just hope the authors of the article haven't lulled themselves into thinking that they've just invented a silver bullet for infections.
- viraptor 13y agoThe idea of homeopathy tries to make the solutions "stronger" by dissolving them with water. It's the main process behind it - the point where you're pretty much left with just water. Nothing like that is claimed here. This idea is based on how ions of silver interact with cells which was also described. You may not agree with the article, but comparing it to homeopathy is just silly.
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- richkuo 13y agoAttention all vampires: They are on to us!
- LandoCalrissian 13y agoReminds me of this funny story: http://www.today.com/id/32774116/ns/today-today_news/t/blue-man-still-man-different-color/ http://www.today.com/id/32774116/ns/today-today_news/t/blue-...
- CamperBob2 13y agoI really liked his quote: (TODAY anchor Matt) Lauer asked him if being on TODAY helped bring him out of his shell. “I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t find the cave I was looking for,” Karason said with his characteristic self-deprecating humor. That will resonate with any introverts who have found themselves in a role that requires speaking in public.
- vrepsys 13y agoIf all the articles saying we're close to making something 1000x more effective, faster, better etc. were true I would probably be writing this comment while driving a solar powered flying car to my home on a moon base. Really wish it was true.
- pvnick 13y agoAny sort of improvement over current antibiotics would be a godsend as the idea of antibiotic-resistance "superbugs" is arguably a ticking timebomb that presents an existential threat to modern society. Right now the most common antibiotics we have (eg penicillin + synthetic derivatives) use a B-lactam ring to disrupt cell wall production. Now we start to see bacteria that are resistant to this attack, eg MRSA (Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), that in worst-case scenarios make even simple surgical procedures life-threatening. Then we bring in the big guns, things like Vancomycin that disrupt cell wall production using different methods. But then we start to see Vancomycin-resistant microorganisms. So governments limit Vancomycin use so as to not give bacteria the opportunity to evolve and develop resistance. Thus drug manufacturers are unwilling to research new antibiotics because they can't make a profit off of restricted-access antibiotics. So it's largely a game of cat and mouse that could very well result in a deadly worldwide epidemic. New ways of looking at the problem such as the one described in the article could, without even being hyperbolic, save billions of lives.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoAntibiotic resistance is definitely not an existential threat. Most people do not catch any bacterial diseases that would be fatal if untreated before their reproductive years. That doesn't mean it's a good situation, but existential threat is greatly overstating the problem. People would have to have an extra baby, MAYBE.
- kolinko 13y agoWell, don't most people catch any bacterial diseases, because we're good at healing the ones that do? With no antibiotics, the bacteria would spread more rapidly, and more people would be sick, and die, right?
- 300bps 13y agoWhat OP said: >presents an existential threat to modern society What responders seem to be responding to: >presents an existential threat to humanity The latter one is obviously wrong. The former, I think it's more likely than not that it's wrong. Sure, globalization would make bacterial outbreaks more likely but simple things like more frequent hand washing and wearing surgical masks any time you're out in public would cut the infection rate down tremendously. There are many societal things we could do to improve society's chances of survival before antibiotic resistance would become an existential threat to society.
- konklone 13y agoBe honest - who here for a second thought this meant that Nate Silver had improved the effectiveness of antibiotics?
- nsxwolf 13y ago... in a petri dish.
- CyberDroiD 13y agoI'm looking forward to tiny nanotech robots that can be deployed on search and destroy missions.
- patricklorio 13y agoSo does this mean there is some truth to the "magic healing power" of silver water?
- lvs 13y agoyou know what else makes antibiotics more effective? bleach. this paper is ridiculous. figure 4: no tested amount of silver nitrate is noncytotoxic. end of story.
- ars 13y agoSo don't use silver nitrate. Elemental silver has low toxicity, they should be able to find some salt with also low toxicity.
- ommunist 13y agoAs a natural selection factor it will lead to flourishing microbal cultures which are 1000x times more deadly than current cocci.
- tokenadult 13y agoI read this interesting submission and the comments to date while I thought about this issue. I see the HN participant posting this story is new here, making his first article submission. Some of the comments surprised me, as they seem to assume that antibiotics as a category of substances are only a few decades old. In fact, many of the first antibiotics in clinical use were "natural" substances, namely mycotoxins secreted by fungi in an endless chemical warfare arms race for living in a world full of bacteria. The reason that antibiotics are useful for human medicine is that fungi are much more biochemically similar to animals (like us) than bacteria are, being our comparatively near evolutionary cousins as fellow eukaryotes, and as such they are naturally selected to produce antibacterial mycotoxins that may be highly effective against broad groups of bacteria while being largely harmless to most animal tissues. But as the article notes, and as we would expect from evolution by natural selection, various strains of bacteria have been selected by differential survival to be more or less resistant to current antiobiotics. Silver as an adjuvant for antibiotics may have some clinical usefulness. The research reported in the article here is laboratory rather than clinical research. There are many more steps to take before knowing whether or not this is a useful approach for human medicine, including carefully controlled clinical trials of safety and effectiveness. The reporter who wrote this news brief was careful to interview another scientist who warns that silver is toxic to human tissues as well as too bacteria, so dosage will be a crucial issue. The obligatory link for any discussion of a preliminary research finding like this article is the essay "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" by Peter Norvig, LISP hacker and director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research. http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html Check each submission to Hacker News you read for how many of the important issues in interpreting research are NOT discussed in the submission. Here we still need to wait for actual human clinical trials to know if the addition of silver to antibiotic treatments will have adequate safety and effectiveness. AFTER EDIT: I'm going to an appointment for my children, so I'll be away from the discussion for a while. I'm not sure what the pattern of upvotes and downvotes on this comment means so far, as replies haven't explained yet what other readers think about this comment.
- contingencies 13y ago"Adjuvant"! [C17: from Latin adjuvāns, present participle of adjuvāre, from juvāre to help] Cheers for a new scrabble word for the armory, tokenadult! The fungi point is a good one, well done for bringing it up. Ditto interpretive guidelines. The breadth of your knowledge is, as always, impressive.
- NatCrodo 13y agoSilver as adjunct treatment for infection sounds promising. I'm curious how this will turn out in the future.
- ars 13y agoI wonder if copper would also work. Copper is just as toxic to bacteria, but is more "bio-active" in the body. This can be both good and bad: Good in that the body can actually remove the copper from the body (unlike silver which stays there permanently). And bad in that copper may be more toxic (don't know).
- boon 13y agoCopper can be problematic in high doses, but usually only when proper copper/zinc ratios are not maintained.
- adamconroy 13y agoI like the sound of overdosing on silver and permanently turning blue / grey
- adamconroy 13y agoOne important point that seems to be missed is that they really want to isolate what mechanism is causing the effect rather than planning to dose everyone with silver.