SSRI Drugs Such As Prozac (fluoxetine) Cause Antibiotic Resistance

[haidut]

If the accumulated evidence on the ineffectiveness and dangers (Massive Study Says SSRI Drugs Are BOTH Ineffective And Dangerous) of SSRI drugs was not already bad enough, now we can add causing antibiotic resistance to the list. The study below found that exposure of E. coli to the SSRI drug fluoxetine (Prozac) increased resistance of the bacterium to multiple antibiotics. The SSRI exposure was comparable to doses that are commonly prescribed to people with depression. As the study says, the rising incidence of antibiotic resistance worldwide has usually been ascribed to antibiotic overuse by doctors, but this new evidence suggests that additional factors are at play and may even be the major reason for the rising resistance rates.
Btw, other ubiquitous environmental pollutants like RoundUp (glyphosate) also contribute to antibiotics resistance amd probably synergize with the the SSRI drugs.
Antibiotic Resistance May Be Driven By Pesticides Like RoundUp (glyphosate)

Given the serotonergic effects of the SSRI drugs and the suppressive effect serotonin has on the immune system, the findings should not come as a surprise, even to mainstream medical professionals. However, since SSRI are such a profitable pharmaceutical niche we probably won't see action curbing their use any time soon.The scary part is that SSRI are prescribed to many in-patients to "prevent" depression or mitigate stress as a result of surgery. So, the risk of antibiotic resistance is automatically raises for the most vulnerable group of people. No wonder hospital death rates have been rising steadily since the 1990s when the SSRIs started becoming prescribed on a mass scale.


@aguilaroja

Antidepressant fluoxetine induces multiple antibiotics resistance in Escherichia coli via ROS-mediated mutagenesis - ScienceDirect
Antidepressants may cause antibiotic resistance

"...A key ingredient in common antidepressants such as Prozac could be causing antibiotic resistance according to new University of Queensland research. A study led by Dr Jianhua Guo from UQ’s Advanced Water Management Centre focused on fluoxetine, a prescription drug used to help people recover from depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder or eating disorders. Dr Guo said while overuse and misuse of antibiotics is generally considered the major factor contributing to the creation of ‘superbugs', researchers were often unaware that non-antibiotic pharmaceuticals could also cause antibiotic resistance."

"...Up to 11 per cent of the fluoxetine dose a patient takes remains unchanged and makes its way through to the sewer systems via urine. “Fluoxetine is a very persistent and well-documented drug in the wider environment, where strong environmental levels can induce multi-drug resistance,” said Dr Guo. “This discovery provides strong evidence that fluoxetine directly causes multi-antibiotic resistance via genetic mutation.” Fellow researcher Dr Min Jin said that under laboratory conditions, the higher the exposure concentration was, the faster the mutation frequency increased with time. “It has previously been an invisible factor in the spread of antibiotic resistance, but we should consider this a warning.

 

[Vinero]

This is somewhat unrelated, but Caffeine can reduce antibiotic effectiveness according to this paper:
http://www.actabp.pl/pdf/2_2017/2016_1327.pdf
They tested several classes of antibiotics including tetracycline and erythromycin, which Ray both recommends. Even though caffeine by itself was found to have antibacterial effects, when combined with an actual antibiotic the antibiotic becomes weaker. Better not drink any coffee if you plan on taking antibiotics.

Some excerpts here
"Although the MICs of metronidazole used alone ranged from 15.63 to 31.25 µg/ml, they increased to between 62.5 and 250 µg/ml when combined with caffeine at its half MICs."
"CONCLUSION In conclusion, caffeine demonstrated significant antibacterial activity against the selected bacterial isolates. However, its combination with the selected antibiotics resulted in significant antagonistic interactions against the bacterial isolates indicating that, against usual practice of using caffeine containing food or drinks in oral drug administration, caffeine should not be combined with antibiotics as this could result in serious therapeutic failure and, possibly, drug toxicity in vivo."

 

[haidut]

This is somewhat unrelated, but Caffeine can reduce antibiotic effectiveness according to this paper:
http://www.actabp.pl/pdf/2_2017/2016_1327.pdf
They tested several classes of antibiotics including tetracycline and erythromycin, which Ray both recommends. Even though caffeine by itself was found to have antibacterial effects, when combined with an actual antibiotic the antibiotic becomes weaker. Better not drink any coffee if you plan on taking antibiotics.

Some excerpts here
"Although the MICs of metronidazole used alone ranged from 15.63 to 31.25 µg/ml, they increased to between 62.5 and 250 µg/ml when combined with caffeine at its half MICs."
"CONCLUSION In conclusion, caffeine demonstrated significant antibacterial activity against the selected bacterial isolates. However, its combination with the selected antibiotics resulted in significant antagonistic interactions against the bacterial isolates indicating that, against usual practice of using caffeine containing food or drinks in oral drug administration, caffeine should not be combined with antibiotics as this could result in serious therapeutic failure and, possibly, drug toxicity in vivo."

Good to know, thanks. So, no antibiotics with coffee or Pepsi/Coke. This is strange because caffeine usually increases effects of steroids when taken with them and allows for much lower steroid doses to have the same effects. I guess it has different effects depending on the molecule it is co-administered with.

 

[aguilaroja]

...The study below found that exposure of E. coli to the SSRI drug fluoxetine (Prozac) increased resistance of the bacterium to multiple antibiotics. The SSRI exposure was comparable to doses that are commonly prescribed to people with depression...
Antidepressant fluoxetine induces multiple antibiotics resistance in Escherichia coli via ROS-mediated mutagenesis - ScienceDirect
Antidepressants may cause antibiotic resistance

"...A key ingredient in common antidepressants such as Prozac could be causing antibiotic resistance according to new University of Queensland research. A study led by Dr Jianhua Guo from UQ’s Advanced Water Management Centre focused on fluoxetine, a prescription drug used to help people recover from depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder or eating disorders. Dr Guo said while overuse and misuse of antibiotics is generally considered the major factor contributing to the creation of ‘superbugs', researchers were often unaware that non-antibiotic pharmaceuticals could also cause antibiotic resistance."...

This is a good counterpoint to recent assertions that SSRI's are antibacterial. This SSRI's-against-infection argument rests largely on characterizations made in tubes and on dishes. It is not so surprising that anti-life substances might also damage microbes, in vitro. We are less than two centuries removed from arsenic and mercury poisoning done as "therapy". Chemotherapy and radiation in oncology persist as "targeted" toxin application.

New roles of fluoxetine in pharmacology: Antibacterial effect and modulation of antibiotic activity. - PubMed - NCBI
"Curiously, the combination of fluoxetine with gentamicin presented an antagonistic effect, as the wells treated with this association presented higher bacterial growth than the wells treated with gentamicin alone"

"The mechanisms by which many of these drugs act on micro-organisms are still unknown, although inhibition of efflux pumps is the mechanism of action known proposed from studies in human cells. This mechanism can explain the synergism with antibiotics such as tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones. In addition, because SSRIs impair a number of processes involving product biosynthesis in microorganisms, it has been suggested that they act on basic metabolic processes, whether or not related to the absorption of substances..."
- -
"The most popular of these cathartics, calomel, was a mercury compound that also caused ulceration of the mouth, loss of teeth, and even destruction of the jawbone. Another favoured drug, the vomitive tartar emetic, contained antimony, a mineral that could inflict much the same damage as arsenic in addition to causing forceful (‘cyclonic’ was one doctor’s word) evacuations by mouth. Physicians recognized the toxic nature of their drugs, but used them nonetheless because they believed them to work, and reasoned (as do oncologists today) that temporary poisoning was a small price to pay for staying alive."
-James Whorton, "The Arsenic Century", 2010

 

[aguilaroja]

...The study below found that exposure of E. coli to the SSRI drug fluoxetine (Prozac) increased resistance of the bacterium to multiple antibiotics. The SSRI exposure was comparable to doses that are commonly prescribed to people with depression....the rising incidence of antibiotic resistance worldwide has usually been ascribed to antibiotic overuse by doctors, but this new evidence suggests that additional factors are at play and may even be the major reason for the rising resistance rates....

@haidut and others have mentioned SSRI contamination of water sources.
This study's conclusions about the SSRI fluoxetine (brand name Prozac) increasing antibiotic resistance are strong. Again, this goes beyond the problems and side effects of SSRI's discussed before. It opens the door for looking at wider factors about antibiotic resistance beyond the poor choices in antibiotic overuse.

Antidepressant fluoxetine induces multiple antibiotics resistance in Escherichia coli via ROS-mediated mutagenesis. - PubMed - NCBI
"Exposure of Escherichia coli to fluoxetine at 5-100 mg/L after repeated subculture in LB for 30 days promoted its mutation frequency resulting in increased resistance against the antibiotics chloramphenicol, amoxicillin and tetracycline. This increase was up to 5.0 × 107 fold in a dose-time pattern."

"Our previously common understanding is that sub-MIC of antibiotics pose the dominant selection pressure to cause antibiotic resistance. Differently, our study for the first time demonstrated that as a non-antibiotic drug, the antidepressant fluoxetine induces multi-antibiotic resistance brought about by ROS-mediated mutagenesis, which will change our current understanding of the emergence of AMR [antimicrobial resistance]."

"It is revealed that the frequent exposure of fluoxetine mainly led to chromosomal mutations (including deletion, insertion, and substitution in marR, rob, sdiA, cytR and crp) that caused altered regulation of genes encoding a multi-efflux pump system (e.g., AcrAB-TolC pump). Clearly, our findings also worsen the already grim perspective of the ongoing antibiotic resistance crisis. It is evident here that we also need to develop efficient control strategies to minimize the emergence of antibiotic resistance due to non-antibiotic drugs/medicines. Considering the wide application of fluoxetine, and the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, our findings are also a wake-up call to start re-evaluating the potential antibiotic-like roles induced by non-antibiotic drugs. Further work is required to investigate effects of fluoxetine on the dissemination of antibiotic resistance in mixed culture with long-term evolution period under environmentally relevant fluoxetine concentrations."

 

[Cheese liver]

This is somewhat unrelated, but Caffeine can reduce antibiotic effectiveness according to this paper:
http://www.actabp.pl/pdf/2_2017/2016_1327.pdf
They tested several classes of antibiotics including tetracycline and erythromycin, which Ray both recommends. Even though caffeine by itself was found to have antibacterial effects, when combined with an actual antibiotic the antibiotic becomes weaker. Better not drink any coffee if you plan on taking antibiotics.

Some excerpts here
"Although the MICs of metronidazole used alone ranged from 15.63 to 31.25 µg/ml, they increased to between 62.5 and 250 µg/ml when combined with caffeine at its half MICs."
"CONCLUSION In conclusion, caffeine demonstrated significant antibacterial activity against the selected bacterial isolates. However, its combination with the selected antibiotics resulted in significant antagonistic interactions against the bacterial isolates indicating that, against usual practice of using caffeine containing food or drinks in oral drug administration, caffeine should not be combined with antibiotics as this could result in serious therapeutic failure and, possibly, drug toxicity in vivo."

So avoid coffee altogether during the antibiotic phase or just change the timing at which u take the coffee ?

 

[Vinero]

So avoid coffee altogether during the antibiotic phase or just change the timing at which u take the coffee ?

I took coffee and antibiotics together at the same time and the antibiotics still worked. I think that study is wrong.

 

[Cheese liver]

I took coffee and antibiotics together at the same time and the antibiotics still worked. I think that study is wrong.

I see perhaps it still might decrease the effectiveness and not render it completely null but anyways will take ur advice into account