Read the Beforeitsnews.com story here. Advertise at Before It's News here.

By Alton Parrish (Reporter)
Contributor profile | More stories

Story Views
Now:
Last hour:
Last 24 hours:
Total:

The Real Cause Of Typhoid Fever Accidentally Discovered

Saturday, July 20, 2013 0:51

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

It’s often the case in science that things are discovered by accident. Alexander Fleming uncovered the secrets of antibiotics with a bout of serendipity – coupled with an intelligent mind to recognize his good fortune. Now, it seems that scientists at Yale University have lucked out, too: they’ve discovered the real cause of typhoid fever.

Image credit: blakespot via Flickr |

Typhoid fever is a disease that dates back to before ancient Greece and still causes as many as 200,000 deaths worldwide each year, roughly the population of Birmingham, Ala. For millennia, the cause of typhoid fever has remained a mystery. But a paper published last week in Nature revealed the true cause of the disease.

“It’s the oldest recognizable disease, it devastated Athens and is credited as the main reason why the Spartans beat the Athenians in war,” said Jorge Galan, the study’s author.

It’s been known for some time that the bacterium responsible for the disease is Salmonella typhi, but despite mankind’s long history with the microbe, “we’ve really been blindsided as to why this bug is so pathogenic, even though it’s a close cousin of the other salmonella sickness, food poisoning,” said Galan.

One of the reasons why humankind has been ignorant to the workings of S. typhi is because it’s a somewhat neglected disease without many researchers working on it, said leading typhoid fever expert Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta, from Aga Khan University in Pakistan.

Galan’s research now discloses how S. typhi has managed to retain its stealth for so long. Its deadliness comes from a novel life strategy: it doesn’t release its toxin until it’s firmly inside a mammalian host cell. Normally when microbiologists search for a potential toxin produced by a microbe, they grow the organism in a culture and then grind it up and search for a candidate compound within the mixture. But S. typhi does not produce a toxin unless you’ve allowed it to enter a host cell, so you couldn’t possibly find it using conventional methods.

Galan, however, broke with protocol to look at the microbe after it had infected a host cell. “We happened to be studying the interaction of [S. typhi] with human cells, we weren’t in the business of trying to find the typhoid toxin, we just bumped into this,” said Galan.

Once inside a mammalian host cell, the typhoid bacterium begins to synthesize the toxin, which is then packaged into courier vessels to be unleashed.

“The toxin is dumped outside of the cell where the bacterium resides and it enters the blood system to hit its target,” said Galan.

Once Galan had identified what he thought could be the toxin responsible for typhoid disease, he isolated and purified it. He then infected mice with it and found that it did indeed result in typhoid symptoms in the mice, except fever, which is an immune response to the presence of the bacterium rather than the toxin itself.

“I think this is an absolutely fascinating paper, but it’s only the first step in the right direction,” said Bhutta. “This particular study looked at mutant strains [of S. typhi], the next step is to work out how much of this is true in real life. How much of this can be replicated by other researchers?”

Bhutta said that it’s still “too early to say whether this is a turning point or not,” towards the possible eradication of the disease.

Galan on the other hand said it will be “scientifically trivial” to synthesize an effective vaccine from an inactivated version of the toxin he discovered – though he concedes that the practicalities of the matter, such as finding enough funding, present a more formidable challenge.

Currently, typhoid treatment relies on a course of antibiotics that targets the bacteria rather than the toxin; occasionally even that fails.

“There are many instances in which people receive antibiotics but they still can’t pull out of the disease. Clearly the bacteria is no longer there. They eventually die. Our hypothesis is that the toxins are still circulating around,” said Galan.

Contacts and sources:

Benjamin Plackett, ISNS contributor

Inside Science News Service

Source: http://nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-real-cause-of-typhoid-fever.html

Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world.

Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.

"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.

Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!

Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!

HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.

Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.

MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)

Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser! Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!

Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.

Smart Meter Cover - Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).

Comments

Total 1 comment

Scared Soldier

Uh, this happened in 1929. So this is not news. Why post it like it was?

Jul 20, 2013, 11:33 am 0 Reply

Online:
Visits:	1,602,841,892
Stories:	8,148,147