The ticks, ya know, they’re the start of it all. These creepy crawlies spread bacteria that lead to Lyme disease, which is a real pain in the butt to study, hard to spot when it’s making you sick, and tough to treat so it doesn’t stick around in your body.
So, like, what’s the deal with this bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi? Well, before we can even think about making tests or vaccines, we gotta do some basic research. It’s slow-going, which totally sucks for folks dealing with the chronic fatigue and brain fog of long-term Lyme disease or the joint pain of Lyme arthritis.
Brandon Jutras, this big shot professor at Northwestern University, spilled the beans to STAT about some new research papers he’s behind. Apparently, they used mouse models to dig into unique chemicals that stick around in about 15% of folks who don’t shake off Lyme infections. These remnants can turn into a syndrome that’s kinda like long Covid, which is a whole other can of worms.
Basically, these studies might help us spot Lyme disease better and maybe give us different treatment options for the 1,200 unlucky peeps who get it every single day in the US.
The first paper looked at mouse Lyme disease to see where part of the bacteria’s cell wall goes. Turns out, these bacteria spit out peptidoglycan, which is like a big molecular bag. When this stuff piles up in the liver, it can keep causing infections and triggering the immune system.
And those pesky ticks might be to blame for trapping bacteria bits in the liver. These leftover bits can tick off the immune system and lead to post-treatment Lyme disease, which is similar to long Covid and other infection-related woes.
Amy Proal, some hotshot microbiologist, thinks more research is needed to find the actual bacteria, not just their leftovers. She’s not sold on this peptidoglycan theory and thinks we need to dig deeper.
But Jutras fired back, saying that the peptidoglycan can hang around in mice even without the bacteria still kicking. This suggests Lyme can linger without the bacteria being present, all thanks to this funky peptidoglycan.
The second paper tackled the downsides of the usual antibiotic, doxycycline, for Lyme. It’s not safe for young kids and can mess with your gut bacteria while killing off the bad stuff.
These smarty pants researchers found a better option, piperacillin, which is part of the penicillin family. It could be used at a lower dose with fewer side effects, but we won’t know for sure until we do some human trials.
So, like, the ball’s in the court of the bigwigs to fund these trials and keep the Lyme disease research ball rolling. It’s a tough road ahead, but hey, we gotta keep on truckin’.
