Breakthrough Antibiotic Discovery for Lyme – My Thoughts

A year or two ago, there was a study done which screened hundreds of obscure antibiotics for potential anti-Borrelia activity. A few little-known drugs emerged from the study. One of which is an IV drug called daptomycin. Since that study, a number of Lyme researchers have digged deeper into researching daptomycin to discover it’s anti-Lyme potential.

Just this week, a new study conducted by Zhang and colleagues found that daptomycin, when combined with doxycycline and ceftin (two currently-used Lyme drugs) found that this 3-drug combo could in fact completely eradicate Lyme disease “persister” cells along with  associated biofilms.

The study can be found here.

Today, Dr. Horowitz, who has treated 12,000 Lyme patients, had this to say about the new study, on his Facebook page:

Dr Zhang and colleagues from Johns Hopkins University just published an article on combinations of antibiotics against borrelia biofilm like microcolonies. “The two drug combination of doxycycline and cefuroxime was unable to eradicate biofilm-like microcolonies of B. burgdorferi persisters. However, the addition of either daunomycin or daptomycin to the doxycycline + cefuroxime combination completely eradicated the biofilm-like structures and produced no visible bacterial regrowth after 7 and 21 days”. This article confirms that usual drug regimens against borrelia are unable to completely eradicate persister bacteria (which clinicians who treat Lyme have known for years), and that a persister drug like daptomycin is necessary to decrease regrowth of the bacteria. The problem with using Daptomycin in clinical practice is that drug must be administered by IV route and is very expensive. I am in the process of evaluating the use of oral generic drugs with persister properties in our medical practice, and the initial statistical data is encouraging. I have been in contact with Dr Zhang, and we submitted a grant to do a prospective study with John Hopkins on novel persister drugs in Lyme disease. We also just received an invitation to submit our initial data for publication, and I am in the process of reviewing the data and statistics with Dr Phyllis Freeman, the PhD researcher at our practice. I hope to have encouraging results for everyone in the near future!

So, we obviously have some promising new data. Daptomycin combined with Ceftin + Doxy can eliminate Borrelia from test tubes.

Ultimately, I do not know whether this will turn out to be a cure for Lyme disease. So, not knowing, please view the rest of this post as my own personal guess, or thoughts, on the future. The below statements aren’t purely scientific, they are my hypothesis based on my limited knowledge of how this will play out.

First, we have to remember that Lyme isn’t just Borrelia – it is also a number of co-infections, heavy metals, hormone problems, detox malfunctions, etc. So, this would imply that the new drug combo isn’t a silver bullet.

Second, we have to remember that Lyme bacteria in particular are experts at hiding within the body, and that there are many more places to hide in human tissue than in a test tube. In fact, as I reported in my book Lyme Disease and Rife Machines, sometimes when you attack the bacteria, they don’t just hide, but they may in fact do more damage, invade new tissues, and multiply more quickly than if you’d left them alone or treated them with a different approach. Here’s a thread in a discussion group where a person seems to have been made worse by using the 3-drug combo. Was this just side effects, or did the bacteria react and get angry and dig deeper into the body? I don’t know. I’m just pointing out possibilities.

Lastly, the drug Daptomycin is expensive and requires IV administration. But even if you don’t mind that, it also has potential side effects. And it’s not widely used enough with Lyme disease to be completely safe.

So, am I a naysayer? A pessimist? A downer? Not at all. I think these studies hold great promise and I look forward to the results. I am, however, skeptical that this will be a magic bullet. I think instead, my GUESS (remember this is just a postulation) is that the drug regimen will likely prove to be a great addition to an Antibiotic Rotation Protocol type therapy (as described in my new book). I’m not convinced it will be a cure.

But I, like you, will watch and wait with anticipation as these new studies unfold.