from Hacker News

1,000-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA

by charkubi on 3/30/15, 3:47 PM with 99 comments

  • by crimsonalucard on 3/30/15, 4:00 PM

    I'm telling you, 10-20 years from now we're going to get garlic and onion resistant MRSA.

  • by _red on 3/30/15, 4:37 PM

    Anecdotal. But when I was young I suffered from intense ear-aches. Eventually my Mom capitulated to my Grandmothers suggestion and put garlic cloves in olive oil and poured into my ear. Within a few hours of treatment those ear-aches would disappear completely.

    Years later I researched and found out about allicin and its presence in freshly crushed garlic.

    In fact there are now theories that many of the cooking practices of "marinating in crushed garlic" was just as much to do about anti-bacterial effects as culinary.

  • by jimrandomh on 3/30/15, 4:04 PM

    "They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria"

    I don't think that's strong enough to be useful. This might be interesting if they can figure out the mechanism and use it to create a stronger antibiotic, but for the stage this is actually at, they're really overselling it.

  • by Symmetry on 3/30/15, 4:16 PM

    Well then, hopefully some pharma company will create their own patented blend called ONGARTA (TM) that they'll shepard through FDA trials so doctors can prescribe it.

    http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescriptio...

  • by rsuelzer on 3/30/15, 6:59 PM

    I'm unclear as to why or how this is entirely useful. This article is probably missing some of the key findings that would make it interesting. In reality, killing a MRSA bacteria culture is trivial and could be done by a child. The real usefulness of this discovery would be if this liquid could be safely ingested and produce antibiotic activity while in the body. Pouring something like bleach, gasoline, hydrochloric acid, liquid nitrogen on MRSA cultures will also kill them. But, but these things won't help treat a MRSA infection in the body.

  • by russellallen on 3/31/15, 10:00 AM

    Oh for goodness sake. This isn't a medical trial of a new anti-MRSA drug. This is an interesting piece of living history research into Anglo-Saxon medical practices.

    Bald's Leechbook is fascinating for many reasons. One in particular they refer to in the article - the local Anglo-Saxon remedies are in general lacking in theory and so more or less evidence based. Later medieval medicine was possibly in many ways worse - Roman and Greek ideas of the four humours were imported and applied as received truth. Later medicine was much more likely to take the approach of "Who are ya going to believe? Aristotle or your lyin' eyes?"

    Anglo-Saxon medicine had no overarching theory to apply. So their salves and potions and magic incantations tended to be adhoc, complicated, and, occasionally, actually worked.

  • by benmarks on 3/30/15, 10:42 PM

    "They were 'astonished' to find it almost completely wiped out staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA."

    Not all S. aureus is MRSA; wondering if this is just poor phrasing or if I'm misunderstanding something.

  • by matznerd on 3/31/15, 1:18 AM

    Just want to make a note for you guys on allicin and garlic. Allicin doesn't exist in garlic, but is created when alliin and a heat-sensitive enzyme called alliinase come in contact with each other.

    They do not mix until you slice, chew, cut or press the garlic and rupture the barriers between them. They key is to wait 10 minutes after this process has occurred until you cook it, or you will remove most of the benefit of allicin. For example, putting freshly chopped garlic in the microwave for 30 seconds will take away 90% of the potential allicin content due to the heat destroying alliinase.

  • by snowwrestler on 3/30/15, 5:12 PM

    Is it hard to kill MRSA in culture? Bleach will do it, for example, and I bet 100% alcohol would too. It's only resistant to known antibiotics, after all--not immortal.

    I think the news here is historical (hey this crazy recipe works), not medical (hey this stuff might be better than anything we already know how to do).

  • by drcube on 3/30/15, 5:41 PM

    As a kid I made "ant poison" by mixing various household chemicals and water in a gallon jug. Then I'd pour it on ants. Sure enough, they died. Mostly by drowning, but still. It worked.

    I wouldn't be comfortable buying a pesticide based on that research, however.

  • by jacquesm on 3/30/15, 6:52 PM

  • by seren on 3/30/15, 4:03 PM

    It does not tell us if it has some side-effects, like making you blind. Chlorine probably also kills MSRA in a petri dish.

  • by kazinator on 3/30/15, 7:17 PM

    The article has no information about how this is supposed to be used.

    Can you inject this into the bloodstream to clear an MRSA infection?

    If not, then it's only useful as a topical antiseptic, which isn't newsworthy, since bleach, Lysol and various alcohols also kill MRSA.

  • by timdiggerm on 3/30/15, 4:15 PM

    Very curious how important it is to get the wine from that particular vineyard

  • by mattbgates on 3/30/15, 10:50 PM

    That's like using natural lemon juice to kill the bacteria that cause pink eye.. great remedy: squeeze lemon juice in your eye (yes it will sting and burn for a hot minute until you... ) run your eye under luke-warm to semi-hot water, and within 2-3 days, no more pink eye. Antibiotics can take up to 10 days to rid pink eye.

  • by enlightenedfool on 3/30/15, 6:27 PM

    I thought...wth? these are first ingredients in every curry we make ... every day. EDIT: I meant onion & garlic

  • by wppick on 3/30/15, 4:05 PM

    We are insignificantly smarter today than we were 1000 years ago. Take a baby from 1000 years ago and bring him to the year 2015, and he will probably be able to fit into modern society perfectly fine.

  • by gus_massa on 3/30/15, 4:05 PM

    > A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections could hold the key to killing antibiotic-resistant superbugs, experts have said.

    The problem is that when this is used frequently, the superbugs will evolve to survive to this treatment. If this result is confirmed, it will be good to have another alternative, but the new alternative will not last forever. (Perhaps 1000 years ago, there was a garlic-and-onion-resistant-superbug, and with the years they lost the mutation to survive this treatment.)

    > They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria and believe it is the effect of the recipe rather than one single ingredient.

    Perhaps it a combination of a few drugs present in the ingredients, that can be produced artificially

  • by DigitalSea on 3/31/15, 1:10 AM

    ... At least until doctors start prescribing onion and garlic for everything, then we'll have to find something else that works.

  • by kbart on 3/31/15, 7:54 AM

    Reminded me of http://goo.gl/SOecWG

  • by lkiernan on 3/31/15, 7:58 AM

    Anyone know where I can buy 1,000-year-old onions?

  • by mikecsh on 3/30/15, 4:18 PM

    This is tripe.

    Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1217/

  • by shimfish on 3/30/15, 6:06 PM

    "They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria and believe it is the effect of the recipe rather than one single ingredient."

    Believe? Don't you want to like, um, test that? You know, science.

    This whole thing stinks of research grant bait.