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Week 5 [23.11-29.11] Bacteriophages – one of the medicines of the future?

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 As every one of us must sure now by now, viruses are deadly. After all, right now every single of one us limits human contact to bare minimum, due to one virus: SARS-Cov-2 more commonly known as Covid-19. With a death toll of more than 1,34 million[1]  people and other, even deadlier[2]  viruses we know of such as e.g. HIV one could think that viruses can only bring harm and destruction to humanity. However, what if we employed the deadliest kind of viruses on Earth – bacteriophages, to possibly avert the impending doom you might not be aware of?

Due to excessive use of antibiotics in therapies, bacteria, as living entities, have evolved and antibiotic-resistant bacteria are killing thousands of people annually, 35,000 in United States alone, according to the 2019 Antiobiotic Resistance Threats Report. While this number may seem small in comparison to other deadly diseases, we currently do not have any reliable way of dealing with such infections and the number of deaths per year is only rising.

Watch the video below to learn more and afterwards answer the questions below.

 


1.What other ways of alternative/experimental therapy do you know of? Have you heard of any that became the main way of dealing with certain disease/condition/affliction?

2. Would you be willing to undergo such or similar therapy if needed? Would it have to be a last-resort option?

3. What, in your opinion, other potential health threats in the future we should worry about? Why?

 

 Sources:

[1]-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data

[2]-https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet

[3]-https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/biggest-threats.html

 

Comments

Maciej Antonik said…
1. There has been a lot of talk lately about the fact that many autoimmune, mental and other diseases can occur due to neglected intestinal flora. It is often about diet. But it's not always that someone is eating something unhealthy. You can eat very healthy, but these particular foods can just hurt you. Food intolerances are difficult to detect and can cause various symptoms. You may think that if you eat a lot of vegetables, you will be healthy. What if you still feel bad for some reason? It is worth considering whether one of the vegetables is not harmful to you.

2. I think that as long as I am not exposed to a certain and tested form of treatment, I would only undertake this type of treatment as a last resort. I don't want to be the subject of experiments if there is no such need.

3. I think about those mentioned in the first point. I don't mean the products and ingredients themselves, but what they are treated with. Plants have a lot of pesticides and other substances on them to ensure that the products are not wormy and spoiled. Meat, in turn, has a lot of antibiotics, animals are fed with some muck, the whole thing is very non-ecological, inhumane and harmful to animals, people and even the planet. I think what we eat will be our end. We cannot eat overly processed food. Unfortunately, such matters are dealt with by agritourism and agriculture institutes, not health institutes ...
29 November 2020 at 13:01
Robert Gawryś-Poniewierka said…
@Maciej Antonik I think you've raised two very good points, first being that many diseases can be linked to aspects of your life you might not even think about, which for some might not even be important. In my opinion, a holistic approach to treatment with serious diseases might be crucial. You can't just try to cure the single element of your body that is sick, because it's not isolated from the rest and as such, you shouldn't try to heal specifically and only it. You've also mentioned that everything we eat or rather, what we don't know we actually eat can have a detrimental effect on our lives. What course of action would you suggest for both an individual and society as a whole in order to circumvent it?
29 November 2020 at 17:36
Filip Śleszyński said…
1.What other ways of alternative/experimental therapy do you know of? Have you heard of any that became the main way of dealing with certain disease/condition/affliction?

Unfortunatelly i dont know any other ways than regular ones like vacines or antybiotics. Very interesting topic is around placebo effect but i wouldnt considere it on larger scale.

2. Would you be willing to undergo such or similar therapy if needed? Would it have to be a last-resort option?

I would be more willing to agree on such a therapy on last-resort options. I kind of scary to be a lab rat and to test new ways of treatment on myself.

3. What, in your opinion, other potential health threats in the future we should worry about? Why?

The more immune bacterias and viruses will appear and spread along whole population i guess. The microorganizms evolves with us and spreading something globbaly is quite easy what can we see on example of the covid 19.
29 November 2020 at 18:40
Zhypargul Maraeva said…
Zhypargul Maraeva
1.What other ways of alternative/experimental therapy do you know of? Have you heard of any that became the main way of dealing with certain disease/condition/affliction?
I would say it is quite hot topic. Unfortunatelly I am not aware at this area/field. I have heard about folk medicine and it quite popular in my country, but I am not sure if it can be helpful for infectious and bacterial diseases.
2. Would you be willing to undergo such or similar therapy if needed? Would it have to be a last-resort option?
I don't know, hard to say but maybe if am dying and it will be last chance and cheap I would do that. However it seems to me not trustful as I understood it is killing bacterias by inserting other bacterias hmm.. sounds not good. I rarely drink antibiotics because I don't think it is helpful, I do believe that healthy food and sport can help me in being healthy

3. What, in your opinion, other potential health threats in the future we should worry about? Why?
Honestly the last decades were unpredictible and I have no idea about that, just beleive we can handle and manage with each desease.

29 November 2020 at 20:56
Robert Gawryś-Poniewierka said…
@Zhypargul Maraeva
Do you believe that folk medicine has some medical base to go with or is it all just placebo? Can it be dangerous in your opinion?

It's actually viruses, but I understand your concern. Luckily, bacteriophages only kill one kind of bacteria (or a few similar ones) so if done properly, it is very unlikely that it would harm you in any way.

Good point, it might be hard to predict due to mutations etc. What we have right now as a mild disease, might be our bane tomorrow. Preparing for future is truly not an easy task :)
29 November 2020 at 22:22
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