04/06/2019
- Study of children prone to recurring colds identifies abnormally high presence of skin affecting bacteria
- More research needed but study holds out prospect of future treatments
Scientists in China believe they have identified the reason why some children repeatedly catch the common cold. Photo: Shutterstock
A team of Chinese researchers has found that an acne-causing parasitical microorganism could be the reason some children catch colds more frequently than others.
Professor Zhang Chiyu and his colleagues at the Institute Pasteur of Shanghai, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have found that a bacterium known as Propionibacterium is closely related to recurring infections, raising the possibility of future drugs or treatments, according to their paper in the May issue of Nature Communications.
The scientists analysed clinical samples from 4,407 children diagnosed with the common cold during a period of six years, from 2009 to 2015, at Nanxiang Hospital in Shanghai, and found an abnormally high presence of the bacterium.
Propionibacterium is a parasite microorganism usually found on human skin. It can cause acne and other skin problems. Some forms of the bacteria are also used to create the holes in some popular varieties of cheese.
A computer illustration of Propionibacterium, a microorganism known to cause acne and other skin problems, and now implicated in frequent colds in some children. Photo: Alamy
Zhang said the research team had found an abnormally high presence of Propionibacterium phages – a signature virus which uses the bacterium as a host – in the clinical samples, and it was likely the large colonies of the microorganism had thrived in the sick children’s respiratory ducts.
The imbalance between different microorganism groups could lead to more frequent, prolonged inflammation and cause further damage on respiratory tissues, he said.
“Living environment can be something worth checking,” Zhang said, suggesting that parents could reduce unnecessary exposure of their children to Propionibacterium infections by keeping them from kissing faces with pimples.
The common cold kills four million children under the age of five worldwide every year.
Frequent recurrence of the common cold is not uncommon. Causes for the phenomenon remain very much unknown, in part due to the difficulty of obtaining a large number of blood samples from under-aged patients.
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Zhang said some uncertainties remained following the study and cautioned that the results were imperfect. For example, the quality of some samples was not ideal, due to a long period of refrigeration, and the interactive mechanism between the bacterium and infection was not entirely clear.
The findings “should not be immediately applied in clinical practice,” Zhang said.
A confirmation study is underway to monitor the conditions of selected child patients over the next two years and, if the results are positive, a testing kit may soon be available to identify children more vulnerable to recurrent colds, he said.
Medical intervention such as therapy or drugs may also be developed to address the issue of bacterium imbalance.
Antibiotic overdose is a severe problem in China and rest of the world, Zhang said. “Hopefully our study will help find a precise target,” he added.
Source: SCMP
Posted in acne, bacteria, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese scientists, common cold, find link, Institute Pasteur of Shanghai, Nanxiang Hospital, Propionibacterium, Uncategorized |
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16/04/2019
- Doctors say drink contained anti-bacteria compound used by catering industry
- Woman took ‘one sip and found it tasted bad’
Fast food chain McDonald’s apologised to a customer who was served milk tea contaminated with disinfectant at one of its stores in eastern China. Photo: Weibo
Fast food chain McDonald’s apologised to a customer who was served milk tea contaminated with disinfectant in one of its stores in eastern China, damaging her digestive tract.
The restaurant said on Monday that it had reached a settlement with the customer, a woman surnamed Huang, after she suffered vomiting, a sore throat, a stomach ache and was taken to hospital on Friday for treatment.
Huang – who was still in hospital – suffered the symptoms shortly after taking a sip of the drink in a restaurant at Changle Airport in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, the Strait Metropolis Daily reported.
“She just had one sip and found it tasted bad. But she already swallowed some of it,” Huang’s husband, surnamed Tang, told the newspaper.
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When the lid was removed from the cup there was a strong smell of disinfectant, Tang said.
“I asked staff workers about the drink, but they just took it and smelled it, without giving any explanation. They threw the drink into the rubbish when we were not looking, but we took it back,” Tang said.
Doctors said the woman’s symptoms were caused by sodium dichloroisocyanurate, a chlorine compound widely used to kill bacteria in water by the catering industry and by the leisure sector in swimming pools.
On its Weibo feed, McDonald’s described the incident as unintentional and said staff would be given more training.
“McDonald’s has paid great attention to the incident and is deeply sorry for the error made by a staff member of our restaurant,” it said.
McDonald’s said that it would improve staff training after the customer was given tea tainted with disinfectant. Photo: Weibo
Source: SCMP
Posted in apologises, bacteria, Changle Airport, China alert, Chinese woman, chlorine cleaner, contaminated, disinfectant, Fujian Province, Fuzhou, Hospital, Huang, McDonald's, served tea, sodium dichloroisocyanurate, sore throat, stomach ache, Strait Metropolis Dail, swimming pools, Taiwan, Tang, Uncategorized, vomiting, Weibo |
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