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Bacteriophages are more effective than antibiotics
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
American experts are confident that in the near future antibiotics will be completely replaced by bacteriophages – special viruses that attack pathogenic bacteria.
Bacteriophages are recognized as the best antibacterial agent. Despite the fact that scientists create newer and stronger antibiotics every year, bacterial cells gradually "invent" countermeasures, showing resistance to treatment.
This cannot be said about bacteriophages. Antibiotic resistance is one of the basic medical problems that scientists can compare only with the problem of increasing incidence of cancer, atherosclerosis and diabetes. WHO representatives believe that the development of resistance to antibacterial drugs threatens future health and even poses a food hazard to humans.
However, resistance is not the only "minus" of antibiotic therapy. "Omnivorous" antibiotics also destroy the beneficial flora that lives inside the intestines, on the skin, in the genitourinary organs. Dysbiosis often causes inflammation, metabolic and even malignant pathologies. And people do not always realize the full depth of the existing problem.
Researchers studying nutrition and food science at George Mason University in Virginia have begun investigating the medicinal potential of bacteriophages, with the idea of using them as a replacement for antibiotics.
Almost everywhere where there are microbes, there are also bacteriophages. These microorganisms are among the most numerous on our planet. For example, doctors are well aware of the staphylococcal bacteriophage, but its effect on the course of microbial infection has been little studied. And some experts even consider the use of such drugs risky.
The peculiarity of "microbe eaters" is their selectivity. That is, if the action of staphylococcal bacteriophage is aimed at destroying staphylococci, then the drug "will not touch" lactobacilli.
“The use of such viral agents completely resolves the issue of the development of dysbiosis: beneficial microorganisms are preserved and continue their development and activity in order to maintain our health,” explains one of the researchers, Professor Taylor K. Wallace.
Scientists conducted an experiment involving volunteers suffering from deep intestinal dysbiosis. The participants were divided into groups: representatives of the first group were treated with bacteriophages, and the second were given a "placebo".
A month after the start of the experiment, the participants were given a 14-day break from treatment. After that, the groups were switched.
As a result, it turned out that during the treatment with bacteriophage, the patients' intestines were literally saturated with natural normal microflora. In patients with diagnosed metabolic syndrome, there was an increase in the colonization of beneficial bifidobacteria, against the background of a decrease in the number of clostridia. And most importantly: not a single side effect was detected during the therapy.
It is worth noting that almost a hundred years ago, bacteriophages began to be used as antimicrobial drugs. However, after antibiotics were discovered, bacteriophages were undeservedly "forgotten".
The results of the latest research project were presented at the American Society for Nutrition's regular conference, which took place this year in Boston. Full details are available on the American Society for Nutrition website.
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