Chestnut leaves have been long used in traditional medicine practices as a way to treat infections. With growing rates of antibiotic resistance there is a strong push to find more natural ways to treat or help treat these superbug infections.
An extract from chestnut leaves has been shown to fight off antibiotic resistant MRSA while maintaining the normal health bacteria on human skin. Through examining some of the aspects of MRSA that makes it so virulent they were able to focus on these aspects when it came to determining the effectiveness of the chestnut leaf constituents. What is even better about these findings is there the bacteria doesn’t build a resistance to these natural compounds like it does to the pharmaceutical antibiotics. In fact, even after 2 weeks of repeated exposure the extract maintained its activity while still not harming natural skin cells and flora creating no bacterial resistance. Currently the goal is to refine the product and await FDA approval as a therapeutic agent.
Emory Health Sciences. (2015, August 21). Chestnut leaves yield extract that disarms deadly staph bacteria: Extract shuts down staph without boosting its drug resistance. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 22, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150821164150.htm