Respiratory infections affect hundreds of millions of people annually and account for nearly 4 million deaths world wide. Treatment plans will depend on the type of infection, with bacterial infections needing antibiotics and viral infections needing antivirals. Prescribing antibiotics to someone with a viral infection wont help them get better and it will add to…
Antibiotic resistance is a problem that affects every country in the world. Bacteria are evolutionary melting pots and in a short amount of time are able to acquire genes that allow them break down antibiotics and survive our current treatments. This can result in life threatening infections that are resistant to all known drugs. MRSA…
What is life? Can you define it? You can probably point out things that are living and things that are not but there are grey areas. Is a virus alive? What about the prions that cause mad cow disease? Trying to describe what life is can be difficult and in fact there is no perfect…
Antibiotics have been our mainstay treatment for bacterial infections since the discovery of penicillin in 1928. Infectious diseases kill more people worldwide than any other single disease. Infectious diseases can be caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, or other one cell bugs called protozoa. Antibiotics only work in treating bacterial infections and not any of the…
You have probably heard of your circulatory system, the series of vessels and arteries used to transport blood full of oxygen and nutrients around your body. What you may not know is that there is a second part to this system called the lymphatic circulation. Your lymphatic system serves many important functions: Absorb excess fluid…
Your large intestine, or colon, is the final stop in your digestive system for your food. It is a wider tube than the small intestine totalling about 1.5 metres in length. It has smooth muscle surrounding it to help propel the waste through the tube. Your large intestine is broken down into 5 main sections: ascending, transverse,…
Sensitization to food allergens often occurs early in the preschool years. While not all kids who develop food sensitivities end up with full-blown allergies, it is often considered the precursor to the development of allergies and asthma. These conditions are typically grouped together under the term atopic disease because of their tendency to be caused by…
Many of the compounds we rely on to treat diseases come from bacteria and microorganisms in our environment. These include antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs. Microorganisms use these compounds to compete with and kill other microorganisms in their environment in order to gain a selective advantage. For the better part of 70 years antibiotics have been…
It’s been shown that there are 10 times as many bacteria on you as there are human cells in your body, this is called your microbiome. Your microbiome plays an important role in aiding digestion, training your immune system and preventing the growth of harmful bacteria. For the most part this bacteria does no harm to…
Antibiotics, first discovered in 1929 by Alexander Fleming, are a class of medications that kill microbes like bacteria, parasites and fungi. The most well known, and first, antibiotic is penicillin which was originally isolated from the fungus Penicillium when Dr. Fleming noticed the fungus could kill disease causing bacteria. Many antibiotics are initially isolated from…
