British researchers have found a recipe full of promise in a grimoire dating from the early Middle Ages. By recreating this preparation including in particular onions and wine, the scientists observed a great effectiveness against resistant bacteria.
Bald's Leechbook is an Old English medical manuscript, compiled around the end of the 9th (or early 10th) century. This book is one of the oldest books dealing with medicine. It contains some amazing recipes . Examples include a recipe for chilblains made with egg, wine and fennel or an aphrodisiac including tea and wood boiled in milk.
However, researcher Freya Harrison and her team from the University of Warwick (United Kingdom) explain that they worked on this book in a publication published in Scientific Reports on July 28, 2020 The directors of the study discovered a recipe that they believe could help fight against resistant bacteria . So it could be a super-antibiotic!
Freya Harrison had already taken an interest in the famous grimoire recipe as part of a study published by the American Society for Microbiology in 2015. It was about " Bald's eye drops", an onion-based potion which the researcher had evaluated the effectiveness against Staphylococcus aureus (Staphylococcus aureus) .
For this new study, scientists have recreated the original recipe . They mixed onions, white wine, garlic, as well as bovine bile salts. Results ? The potion is particularly effective against biofilms . It is a form of bacterial colonization often resistant to conventional antibiotics. The fact is that their elimination takes between a hundred and a thousand times longer than conventional bacteria!
The study directors explain that the ingredients of the potion individually already exhibit some antibacterial activity. For example, allicin (garlic and onion), a sulfur compound used by plants to defend themselves against certain predators. However, the researchers believe that the combination of the different ingredients is the key to effective treatment. It is a question of a synergy resulting either from the molecules optimizing the mutual activity of the different compounds, or from the different mechanisms of action of each of the ingredients.
What if this kind of potion could incarnate a solid answer in the face of antibiotic resistance? Remember that in January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) reaffirmed that this was a major public health issue.
