Month: November 2015

The Post-Antibiotic Era Creeps Ever so Closer

antibiotic

The implications for medicine of no longer being able to rely on antibiotics is quite serious.  It would drastically change the medical landscape.  This goes far beyond just the treatment of serious infections.

This recent study is very concerning: Emergence of plasmid-mediated colistin resistance mechanism MCR-1 in animals and human beings in China: a microbiological and molecular biological study.

The BBC has a good write up on the above study which includes the following ominous quote from Professor Timothy Walsh:

“If MCR-1 becomes global, which is a case of when not if, and the gene aligns itself with other antibiotic resistance genes, which is inevitable, then we will have very likely reached the start of the post-antibiotic era.”

We have dedicated a whole new forum to this issue: Post-Antibiotic Era Forum on Ecoja

Vegetable Oil Toxicity

vegetable_oil

The Telegraph has an infographic in their article Cooking with vegetable oils releases toxic cancer-causing chemicals, say experts that is worth checking out.  Spoiler alert: coconut, butter, and olive oil fair far better than the vegetable oils.

Todd Caldecott has an excellent article on fats and oils that you can read online (from his book Food as Medicine that we highly recommend).