Curcumin Can Help Overcome Antibiotic Resistance: Study Finds - Video

Researchers in a new study showed that curcumin, the compound that gives turmeric its characteristic bright yellow color, can potentially be used to reduce antibiotic resistance.

The study showed that when curcumin is intentionally given to bacteria as food and then activated by light, it can trigger deleterious reactions within these microbes, eventually killing them. This process, they demonstrated, reduces the number of antibiotic-resistant strains and renders conventional antibiotics effective again. The results of the study are published in the journal

Scientific Reports.

Photodynamic inactivation, a technique that has shown promise in combating bacterial resistance, uses light and light-sensitive molecules, called photosensitizers, to produce reactive oxygen species that can kill microorganisms by disrupting their metabolic processes. In their experiments, the team used curcumin, which is also a natural food for bacteria. They tested this technique on strains of Staphylococcus aureus that are resistant to amoxicillin, erythromycin, and gentamicin.

The researchers exposed the bacteria to many cycles of light exposure and then compared the minimum concentration of antibiotics needed to kill the bacteria after light exposure versus those that did not get light exposure.

The team noted that photodynamic inactivation using curcumin has tremendous potential as an adjuvant or additional therapy with antibiotics for diseases, like pneumonia, caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

“When we have a mixed population of bacteria where some are resistant, we can use photodynamic inactivation to narrow the bacterial distribution, leaving behind strains that are more or less similar in their response to antibiotics,” said Dr. Vanderlei Bagnato, professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and senior author on the study. “It’s much easier now to predict the precise antibiotic dose needed to remove the infection.”