February 21, 2020

expert reaction to study looking at plant-based extracts and Lyme disease-causing bacteria

A new study looked at the effects of plant-based extracts on Lyme disease-causing bacteria.

Prof Sally Cutler, Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of East London (UEL), said:

“The work shows laboratory inhibitory effects of various natural medicines against B. burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease. This microbe is highly susceptible to antibiotics and thus demonstration of inhibition by natural medicines is not particularly surprising. The big question is whether they might show beneficial effects in the human.

“Lab studies are a good starting point, but difficult to extrapolate to what happens in a human body, so considerable further study would be needed to assess if these might have a genuine role in clinical practice. Use of synchronized cultures actively growing or in stationary phase, again is not a mimic for what might happen during infection of a human. These are all limitations to the current work. There is a poorly documented attempt to align with remedies being used by patients, but this needs to be more clearly substantiated. Only one strain was used for the evaluations and this was a tick isolate (not patient) of unknown passage number, thus may not represent recent infectious isolates, thus another study limitation.

“The implications are difficult to assess based upon this preliminary work. The role in those with persisting signs is likely to be overspeculation based upon evidence to date. Persistent Lyme disease cases are a heterogeneous group that is particularly challenging to evaluate as they are a varied group and might include some individuals with other clinical conditions that might account for some on-going symptoms, those with immune-mediated conditions or recurrent infection, in addition to those with continuing disease signs. The current study findings need considerable additional work to conclusively demonstrate value in this particularly challenging patient group.

“Many belonging to Lyme advocacy groups use varied natural remedies to manage their on-going complaints. Comparison with these therapies would be valuable.”

‘Evaluation of Natural and Botanical Medicines for Activity against Growing and Non-growing Forms of B. burgdorferi’ by Feng et al. was be published in Frontiers in Medicine at 04:00 UK time on Friday 21st February, which is also when the embargo lifted. 

Declared interests

None received.