Staphylococcus aureus has been a household name for decades. Even before it’s more infamous variation Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), staph was a common concern. Scientists may have stumbled upon a way to prevent staph, and backed that discovery up with research. A common probiotic, Bacillus, forms a defense system against staph, stopping healthy individuals from getting infected (or even carrying the bacteria!). It’s another good reason to take your daily probiotic.
The study found that people who had the good bacterial strains of Bacillus in their gut and sinuses didn’t have staph present. But then the researchers took this discovery a step further, and used technology to look at how Bacillus was stopping staph, establishing causation! What’s more, Bacillus was even effective against the more antibiotic strains of staph, stopping some of the most virulent strains of MRSA. And it works two ways: those who already had Bacillus in their natural microbiomes were protected, and in a mouse study, mice who started with staph were able to defeat it with the introduction of Bacillus!
Staph is one of those germs even young, healthy people need to worry about. You can carry staph, even in its MRSA form, in your skin, gut, or sinus microbiome, and have no symptoms. Then, when your immune system is weak, your skin breaks, or you have surgery, (etc., etc…) it can grow and spread, and suddenly you have a staph infection.
Symptoms of staph infection include redness, swelling, and slow healing. A small red pimple-like spot that doesn’t clear up normally could be staph, and should be tested (for example).
Traditional treatment of staph is to go nuclear, and wipe out everything with round after round of intense antibiotics. If Bacillus is accepted as a treatment, it could improve the outcomes of many patients in a much gentler, safer way (especially since staph is a common hospital acquired infection).
In the meantime, you can take a good probiotic supplement like Flora MGR and start getting some of those possible protections right now.
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