Scientists have discovered a surprising new use of cannabis afterwardsthinks that the main non-psychoactive component, ssynthetic cannabidiol – better known as CBD – can kill the bacteria responsible for it gonorrhea, meningitis and Legionnaires’ disease.
The research, which was a collaboration between IMB’s Center for Superbug Solutions and Botanix Pharmaceuticals Limited, could lead to the first new class of antibiotics for resistant bacteria in 60 years.
Dr. Mark Blaskovich, Director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, said CBD can penetrate and kill a wide variety of them bacteria including Neisseria gonorrhoeae, what causes gonorrhea.
Blaskovich said: “This is the first time that CBD has been shown to kill some types of Gram-negative bacteria. These bacteria have an extra outer membrane, an extra line. defense that makes it more difficult for antibiotics to penetrate. “
The news could be mostly great for people in Australia, true gonorrhea is the second most common sexually transmitted infection.
According to IMB, it has become so common that there is none longer a single reliable antibiotic to treat it, because the bacteria is particularly good at developing resistance.
The investigation – that was recently published in the journal Communications Biology – also suggested that cannabidiol is effective in killing superbug MRSA which is found in golden staph bacteria and can be used to treat diabetic ulcers and wounds.
10 days ago“Cannabidiol showed a low tendency to cause resistance in bacteria, even when we accelerated potential development by increasing the levels of the antibiotic during ‘treatment’,” added Blaskovich.
“We think cannabidiol kills bacteria by bursting their outer cell membranes, but we don’t know exactly how it does that yet, and we need to do further research.”
Vince Ippolito, Botanix’s president and executive chairman, said the investigationshowed huge potential for the development of effective treatments Intercept the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance.
Ippolito said: Congratulations to Dr. Blaskovich and his team for producing this important study – The published data clearly shows the potential of synthetic cannabinoids as antimicrobials. “
Further trials with CBD formulations are now underway, with Blaskovich’s Courier mail: “We think we can develop a different version of CBD that can have some systemic activity.
“We want something that is not broken down in the body as quickly as CBD. There is certainly potential for CBD to be a prototypical representative of a new class of antibiotics.”