Sugar helps medicine's battle against chronic bacterial infections

A team of researchers has discovered that a spoonful of sugar not only makes medicine easier to swallow, but it can also help it work.

James Collins, a pioneering researcher in the new field of systems biology, is talking about his recent development of an effective, low-cost and surprising way to treat chronic bacterial infections, such as staph, strep, tuberculosis, and infections of the urinary tract.

He and his team of scientists discovered that a simple compound sugar dramatically boosts the effectiveness of first-line antibiotics.

Collins' approach consists of adding sugar to the antibiotic. The sugar acts as a stimulant, essentially turning on normal bacterial responses, such as dying when confronted by a killer antibiotic.

Using this strategy on E. coli bacteria, a common cause of urinary tract infections, the team was able to eliminate 99.9% of the persisters within just two hours - compared to no effect without sugar.

The study has been published in the journal Nature.