Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#41

Post by zdragnar »

pmags wrote: post #35
Loughla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pesticides have nothing to do with this. Staple crops in the United States essentially do not use fungicides anymore. GM crops have negated that need. Edit: what did I say that was incorrect?

n.b. Down votes are not mine Azoles (and other antifungals) are indeed still used in the US and there is documented azole resistance in important opportunistic fungal pathogens such as Aspergillus in the US: • Celia-Sanchez BN, Mangum B, Gómez Londoño LF, Wang C, Shuman B, Brewer MT, Momany M. Pan-azole- and multi-fungicide-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus is widespread in the United States. Appl Environ Microbiol. 20…

The GP mentions "staple crops". In the US, azoles are used more on corn, wheat and soybean seeds than they are the actual crops themselves. Rice, on the other hand, and others get direct applications to the crops.

Presumably, applying it to the seeds going into storage is safer than applying in the open environment, but it's probably redundant since the Google claims azole use in the US is increasing.

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#42

Post by chasil »

nabla9 wrote: post #8

//Thermotolerance Adaptation// The main reason why fungal infections typically kill only elderly and sick humans (mammals) is body temperature. Most fungi cannot survive at human body temperature (~37°C). Rising global temperatures are driving fungi to adapt by becoming more thermotolerant, enabling them to survive and replicate at human body temperatures. Effects of climate change on fungal infections https://journa…

There are at least some cases where fungi can cause illness in otherwise healthy humans.

The one that comes to mind is ergot, by ingestion of a chemical byproduct:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot

A number of poisonous substances in mushrooms are reviewed in this wiki:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning

I also checked "black mold," but it appears that link is not firmly established:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stachybotrys_chartarum

Fungal pneumonia is well-known, but apparently not prevalent beyond the immunocompromised:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungal_pneumonia

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#43

Post by metalman »

chasil wrote: post #34
metalman wrote: post #17

ummmm, hmmmmmmm, It's high time we realised that we are the largest single niche, and animal biomass, that possibly, has ever existed, and it is a law of biology, that each niche will be filled. This means that any peicemeal approach is going to lagg, and uncontrollable epidemics become more and more likely. Confounding factors are that our diets and lifestyles are converging into a more homegenous whole, and all in…

"By weight, human beings are insignificant." https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/al... (Sorry you're getting down voted.)

diferent sources put humans as second only to cattle, for a single animal species, so I was wrong, but I did mean single species of animal. As to getting down/up voted, I am useing it as an anylitical tool to understand what facets of what I write are offensive, at least to some, and a fine line seems to exist where some of what I say, gets positive comments, or engagement, while bieng down voted at the same time, which is puzzling but interesting.If I go through what I write a few times, sometimes I can see the possibly ambiguous bits, and make them clearer, which seems to lessen the down voteing. Kind of like a tough love writing school around here that way.

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#44

Post by Loughla »

zdragnar wrote: post #41
pmags wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

n.b. Down votes are not mine Azoles (and other antifungals) are indeed still used in the US and there is documented azole resistance in important opportunistic fungal pathogens such as Aspergillus in the US: • Celia-Sanchez BN, Mangum B, Gómez Londoño LF, Wang C, Shuman B, Brewer MT, Momany M. Pan-azole- and multi-fungicide-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus is widespread in the United States. Appl Environ Microbiol. 20…

The GP mentions "staple crops". In the US, azoles are used more on corn, wheat and soybean seeds than they are the actual crops themselves. Rice, on the other hand, and others get direct applications to the crops. Presumably, applying it to the seeds going into storage is safer than applying in the open environment, but it's probably redundant since the Google claims azole use in the US is increasing.

Correct. There is a difference between seed treatment and broadcast treatment of crops.

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#45

Post by _heimdall »

sarchertech wrote: post #40
_heimdall wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot baked into that theory (well, hypothesis) though. We haven't gone through a cycle like that yet that I'm aware of, moving back to an old antibiotic because the newer one is no longer effective. Looking just at the evolution of it, there would need to be pressure to actively select against the learned resistance. Maybe it would be lost eventually, but we couldn't rely on that unless something pushed the…

This has been well researched. Most antibiotic resistance has a fitness cost. Which means the resistance is being actively selected against. This isn’t always the case. There are some adaptations that don’t have an observable fitness cost, but the majority do. That is, in a lab when you remove the antibiotic, we observed that the number of resistant bacteria drops over time. We have also observed this in the real wor…

Sure, but I think we agree then. What you describe is a hypothesis based on a few important assumptions. For example, that controlled lab studies are predictive analogs for the natural world, that a drop in resistance in such a controlled study will match a real world scenario, and that the rate at which resistance is lost can reasonably be matched by cycling in different drugs.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, maybe it is! Only that its a hypothesis and that the key assumptions are still just that rather than known parameters.

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#46

Post by sarchertech »

_heimdall wrote: post #45
sarchertech wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been well researched. Most antibiotic resistance has a fitness cost. Which means the resistance is being actively selected against. This isn’t always the case. There are some adaptations that don’t have an observable fitness cost, but the majority do. That is, in a lab when you remove the antibiotic, we observed that the number of resistant bacteria drops over time. We have also observed this in the real wor…

Sure, but I think we agree then. What you describe is a hypothesis based on a few important assumptions. For example, that controlled lab studies are predictive analogs for the natural world, that a drop in resistance in such a controlled study will match a real world scenario, and that the rate at which resistance is lost can reasonably be matched by cycling in different drugs. I'm not saying it isn't possible, mayb…

We have more than lab studies, we have real world observations that show the percentage of resistant strains dropping when we reduce the use of a specific antibiotic.

We may not be able to produce new antibiotics fast enough to get to the point where we have enough to cycle them effectively. That’s entirely possible.

But we have very good evidence that there is a point at which we would have enough. I mean at the limit there is a maximum amount of information bacteria can store in their genes, so there certainly exists some maximum number of resistances they can retain.

My point isn’t that we’re going to have enough to do this in x years. My point is that while we don’t know how many different antibiotics we need, we are almost certain that that number isn’t infinite.

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#47

Post by RecycledEle »

The cure for most drug-resistant fungal infections is simple:

There are 3 common anti-fungals: clotrimazole, miconazole, and tolnaftate.

For external fungal infections (e.g. toe fungus,) the area can be kept dry if you use powdered anti-fungals.

For internal fungal infections (e.g., vaginal infections) is is not possible to keep the area dry, so don't try to keep it dry.

The cure is to rotate among the 3 common anti-fungals and keep the area dry if possible.

The first problem is that, most people in the USA do not know that powdered clotrimazole is available by prescription.

The second problem is that this course of treatment is illegal in the USA. US law prohibits doctors from advising patients to take OTC meds (powdered miconazole and tolnaftate) with prescription meds (powdered clotrimazole.) Doctors literally spend years advising their patients on methods they know will not cure their infections, because it is illegal in the USA to explain what will cure it.

Post reply on HN