Statins to help fight MRSA

You read it right. Statins, those great cholesterol lowering drugs like Lipitor and Zocor, may be the key to fighting methicillin resistant staph aureus, otherwise known as MRSA. MRSA is a superbug, a bacteria that we as humans and medical professionals have created by killing off all the other, easily killed bugs by weak medicines. This new superbug is one of probably many superbugs our children and grandchildren will be trying to kill. Now, however, a new drug has come into play, and it isn’t an antibiotic.

Bacteria, like you and me, use antioxidants, those great and wonderful compounds companies have been trying to put into everything from breads to sodas, to help fortify their defenses. The bad news, however, is that we don’t want them having defenses against our medicines. Special antioxidants, called carotenoids, are therefore used by the bacteria to produce a golden color of protection against our antibiotics. This same color is what gives carrots (hence carotenoids and beta-carotene) its color as well. So, why statins?

Well, before there were statins, in a lab, there were squalene synthase inhibitors. (Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, but don’t try to keep up) These inhibitors worked against the same pathway that bacteria use to produce carotenoids and the golden barrier, if you will. Statins, however, worked so much better at lowering cholesterol than these guys did that statins took over the market. But, if we could give these squalene synthase inhibitors to humans, as well as antibiotics, we may soon have an answer to fighting MRSA. 5 years down the line, you say? No! Because, there have already been preliminary clinical trials in humans with these new drugs, of course, to treat LDL, not MRSA, they can be quickened through the process because Phase I and Phase II trials already exist, showing safety. I suspect we could have this in the market by late 2009-early 2010.

However, I do not recommend giving Lipitor or any statin to a family member you know who has a MRSA infection, as those are a different kind of inhibitors to cholesterol making, and will more than likely not work (I know, bad title…)