Cannabis: the solution against bacteria resistant to traditional antibiotics?

The Antibiotic resistance advances throughout the world, according to the World Health Organization. And the problem is not trivial: if drugs that must fight disease-causing organisms are abused, it will be increasingly difficult to deal with drugs. In addition, their resistance is faster than the medical advances that fight them.

Therefore, science also tries to use less common elements in this battle. One of the most recent is cannabis or hemp, which contains antibacterial substances of a higher potency than those commonly used and which can be used to combat MRSA, term with which the 'methicillin-resistant aerial staphylococcus' is known, a bacterium immune to certain penicillin derivatives. This strain, which is the most common case of resistance, is becoming immune to vancomycin (under the name of SARV).

A recent study by McMaster University in Ontario (Canada) has found that cannabis incorporates an "antibacterial ability against MRSA and against its antibiotic-resistant stationary phase cells, "especially in combination with polymyxin B, a group of antibiotics also discovered more than 70 years ago. Using it is effective against gram-positive bacteria – those that have an outer wall followed by a membrane – and against the large, negative membrane.

As it does? Preventing these organisms from forming 'biofilms' – an organized structure of tapestry-shaped microorganisms – as well as destroying those already built. And it is capable of destroying the membranes, including waterproof ones, of the bacteria.

The antibacterial substances it contains are of a higher potency than those commonly used and can be used to combat MRSA.

According to the researchers, the natural defense constituting cannabinoid substances in plants such as marijuana, which contains it, can be used in the drug industry, "with pharmacological properties. favorable in humans", which they define as" a tractive advantage for new antibiotics. "

And this is not the only known medical use of cannabis: smoked, is prescribedOn certain occasions, to combat pain, pain and, almost two centuries ago, its resin was spread directly on the skin to heal skin wounds.