Biofilms, Lyme and Ozone

What are biofilms?

Biofilms are everywhere. Some are beneficial and some are not. Plaque on your teeth is a type of biofilm, as is the slippery substance on river rocks and the slime that clogs your drains. They form in moist environments when bacteria adhere to the surface using a slimy substance. Natural materials, plastics, metals, body tissue and plants are all ready sites for biofilm formation.

The concept of biofilms was introduced to the medical community in the 1990s. Dentists were able to see this quickly because it’s easy to scrape substances from teeth for examination under a microscope. Internal testing was more difficult, but now we can see how entrenched microbial populations in the body interact with chronic infections.

For example, biofilms are shown to play a part in recurring ear infections in children. Peptic ulcers, bacterial endocarditis, Legionnaire’s disease, Lyme disease and cystic fibrosis have also been shown to have a link.
 

Biofilms and antibiotics

For a long time, scientists have studied microbial cells in what is known as the planktonic, or floating state, as opposed to the sessile, or attached state. Antibiotics in use today were created by testing floating cells in suspension or when grown on agar. More recent research now shows that bacteria, once they attach to a surface and form communities, employ survival strategies and behaviors that greatly exceed the capabilities of individual bacteria. Microbial biofilms have been shown to be tolerant to doses of antibiotics up to 1000 times higher than what would kill bacteria in a planktonic stage.

During one study, a common Haemophilus influenza bacteria was exposed to low doses of ampicillin, which is used to treat sinus, ear and respiratory infections. The dose wasn’t high enough to kill the bacteria. This allowed the bacteria to react by creating glycogen, a complex food source, which in turn produced stronger biofilms in the lab.
 

An example of what biofilms can do

For a better idea of what a problem this can be, let’s look to Lyme disease, which is chronically difficult to treat. Inside a biofilm, the Borrelia that causes Lyme disease is able to communicate with itself to put forth offensive actions. It can swap genetic information, allowing it to take on drug-resistant traits in order to survive. And because it has a reproductive cycle of just weeks, it can become resistant to drugs in a few generations.

Biofilms help protect Borrelia from the immune system, which would normally produce antibodies. The Elisa and Western Blot tests use antibodies as proof that Lyme disease is in the body, but if biofilms keep those antibodies from being created, you might get negative tests results and still have the disease.

There is growing interest in biofilm dissolvers in an attempt to expose Borrelia so it can be more readily treated. Holistic dissolvers include Lumbrokinase, Serrapeptase and Nattokinase. Tindamax is available by prescription and is often used as a cyst buster in Lyme patients, but is capable of dissolving biofilms as well.
 

Where do we go from here?

It’s easy to see that if bacteria is able to protect itself inside groups, it is harder to treat. There is a belief that modern medicine needs to be able to detect and treat biofilms, preferably before bacteria are able to form a truly protective structure. Because it is so difficult to treat biofilm infections, some are proposing moving toward non-antibiotic treatments.

Ozone is one method that is becoming more popular, as it is a strong oxidant already used to purify water. Ozone cuts through the biofilm’s skeleton to dissolve it back into fragments. When the biofilm is unable to stick together, it can’t provide such a strong defense for bacteria.

As more research is completed with a focus on preventing or dissolving biofilms, we will hopefully see the prevalence of difficult-to-treat infections rapidly decrease.

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