Antimicrobial resistance and synergy in herbal medicine

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious and growing threat to human health. The development of new antibiotics is limited and slow. The tradition of synergy in herbal medicine is being used as a source of research ideas. A literature review of antimicrobial research and plant synergy published in a five year period was carried out using online databases. The in vitro findings were that most of the research reported synergy both within plants and between plants and antibiotics.Whole plant extracts and combinations of compounds were shown to be more effective antimicrobials than isolated constituents. The discussion highlights that the in vitro herbal research findings are difficult to apply to practice and aren't progressing to clinical trials.Collaborative, innovative, inter-disciplinary clinical research is recommended.

Evaluation of Phytochemical Constituents and Antibacterial Activity of Chromolaena Odorata L. Leaf Extract against Selected Multidrug Resistant Bacteria Isolated from Wounds

“…Originally, an antibiotic refers to an organic compound produced by a microorganism but has the potential to destroy another microorganism although presently the term also include those produced synthetically [4]. Antibiotics resistance has occurred when a microorganism is not affected by the antibiotics used against it [5].This results majorly from the indiscriminate use of antibiotics and is a primary threat to the success of modern health care [6] and has led to the studying of medicinal plants as a conceivable means of alternative therapy [7]. For many centuries, medicinal plants have been used as medicines in the treatment of many infections and diseases either as whole plants or plant extracts [8] because of bioactive compounds present in them which offers protection against microorganisms and insects.…”

Plant Secondary Metabolites in the Battle of Drugs and Drug-Resistant Bacteria: New Heroes or Worse Clones of Antibiotics?

“…Each phytochemical compound demonstrating a high level of bactericidal activity has the potential to stimulate the development of microbial drug resistance, as assumed above. However, a crude extract consists of multiple components, each of them being able to act at different sites of the microbial cell thereby contributing to the overall activity of the extract [92,155]. In fact, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that the process of isolation of some phytochemicals often leads to a loss or reduction in their activity.…”

Interactions of resveratrol with other phenolics and activity against food‐borne pathogens

“…Despite numerous studies examining the antibacterial effects of combined natural compounds such as essential oils (Palaniappan & Holley, 2010;Patrone, Campana, Vittoria, & Baffone, 2010;Periago & Moezelaar, 2001;Rivera Calo, Crandall, O'Bryan, & Ricke, 2014) or phenols and organic acids (Del Valle et al, 2016;Vasconcelos de Oliveira, Montenegro Stamford, Gomes Neto, & Leite de Souza, 2010), information on the interaction of individual phenolic compounds with resveratrol are rather scarce (Chan, 2002;Del Valle et al, 2016). In this study, the antibacterial activity of selected phenolic compounds with resveratrol was tested by the microdilution method, and their interaction as binary phenolic mixtures was described by the fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI) (Mundy, Pendry, & Rahman, 2016;Palaniappan & Holley, 2010;Petersen, Labthavikul, Jones, & Bradford, 2006). The data presented in Table 2 indicate that mixing phenolic acids with resveratrol at an equimolar ratio generally improved their antibacterial activity.…”