Just A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down

According to a new study published in Nature, adding sugar to certain antibiotics can "boost their bacteria-battling ability," says 80beats' Valerie Ross. Sugar particularly helps the drugs wipe out the bacteria that evade treatment by going dormant when antibiotics are administered, Ross adds. The study looked at E. coli and S. aureus, and combined the antibiotic gentamicin with different kinds of sugars. "When the scientists added these sweetened antibiotics to bacteria grown in Petri dishes, it killed over 99 percent of the bacterial persisters," Ross says. "The type of sugar seemed to make a difference, as well; only fructose helped the drug kill S. aureus, for instance."