Drug Resistant Bacteria

The occurrence of drug resistant bacteria has become a serious health issue in our time – and there's no sign it's going away soon.

The overuse of antibiotics is a big contributor to the increase in bacteria resistant to drugs. The widespread use of antibacterial hand soaps and household cleaners is not helping matters either.

Drug resistant bacteria arise when they “crack the code” of the man-made pharmaceuticals designed to fight them. After cracking the code of these agents, the bacteria reproduced is stronger than that which came before it.

People infected with these bacteria are vulnerable to suffer and possibly die because traditional medicine has no cure for the stronger strains of bacteria.

Fortunately, therapeutic-grade essential oils have had success overcoming resistant strains of bacteria – more on that in a bit.

For a long time, pathogens resistant to drugs have occasionally shown up in hospitals. Recently, however, the incidence of these pathogens is increasing and are now regularly showing up in other public places – such as gyms and schools.

Due to this situation, we now frequently hear of people being afflicted with unusual infections that just will not go away.

In response to these emerging superbugs, pharmaceutical companies seek to develop stronger antibiotics. But unfortunately, these drugs bring with them more serious side-effects, and at the same time fail to destroy the offending bacteria.

MRSA

A good example of this is MRSA.

In an effort to overcome highly resistant bacteria, drug companies formulated a potent antibiotic called methycillin, Though powerful enough to kill a patient, this drug has not successfully fought off stubborn pathogens. As a result, MRSA , or “methycillin resistant staphalococcus aureus,” has become common..

Whenever MRSA gets hold of a person, there is very little modern medicine can do. Essential oils, however, have been effective in combating this growing problem.

What is it that makes essential oils able to do what drugs cannot accomplish? 

The Essential Oil Difference

There are two main differences that set essential oils apart and enable them to be effective against powerful drug resistant bacteria.

First, essential oils are complex structures, being comprised of hundreds of compounds. In contrast, drugs produced in a laboratory consist of only a few active ingredients. As a result, bacteria have a lot easier time decoding synthetic drugs.

Second, essential oils always vary chemically from one batch to another. This is because essential oils are influenced by all the variables that affect a growing season (such as weather, soil conditions, and geographical location) Drugs, on the other hand, are standardized and always the same. The constant nature of these drugs enables bacteria to learn their make-up and become resistant to them.

So, for example, a basil or oregano plant will always produce the same compounds that constitute the species of the plant, but the proportions of these compounds will vary from harvest to harvest, making them able to evade the efforts of bacteria to figure them out and become resistant to them.

Once the strategy of bacteria against drugs is understood, its easy to see how drug resistant bacteria arises. Yet it is also easy to understand why essential oils are able to be effective against these invaders.

If fewer drugs were used, and substituted with essential oils, surely we would see a decline in the stubborn bacteria we are finding today. Fortunately, this is slowly being realized, and some hospitals and nursing homes are beginning to implement the use of essential oils.

Two oils that have been frequently used against antibiotic resistant bacteria with effectiveness are lemongrass and the blend R.C.. 

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