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Thought this might be of tangential interest...

"Long-term antibiotic treatment designed to fight a common but stubborn bacterial infection does not reduce the risk of heart attack, according to two studies released on Wednesday.

Previous studies found that more than three-quarters of heart attack patients were infected with Chlamydia pneumonia, a bug present in the fatty plaques that clog arteries"

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... biotics_dc

It blows my mind that none of these studies use a regimen which includes pulsed Metronidazole. Why not I wonder?

"Long-term antibiotic treatment designed to fight a common but stubborn bacterial infection does not reduce the risk of heart attack, according to two studies released on Wednesday.

Previous studies found that more than three-quarters of heart attack patients were infected with Chlamydia pneumonia, a bug present in the fatty plaques that clog arteries"

As with everything, it depends on when the treatment is started. If you wait until the atherosclerosis is too far gone, then not much can be done. If you heed the warning signs: raised blood pressure, heavy, irregular heart beat and so on, taking these antibiotics can right everything. I know of some people who have taken this treatment to very good effect, but they caught it in time. They didn't wait for trial results, either, but two had a familial history of heart disease.

As the epidemiologist in one of the trials noted, a vaccine against CPn is the way forward, because it is implicated in so many diseases. If someone is given a suitable antibiotic for the right reasons, though, it does not lead to antibiotic resistant superbugs, this is a common misconception.

It blows my mind that none of these studies use a regimen which includes pulsed Metronidazole. Why not I wonder?

I think one person once died from liver disease after taking metronidizole.

A good way to spend my lunch break:

Here are two interesting links, the first showing how monotherapy leads to resistance, whereas combination therapy does not. In this case th disease is reactive arthritis, but the same applies to anything:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... =iconabstr

CONCLUSION: The combination of doxycycline and rifampin for 9 months seemed to be effective in treatment of chronic uSpA. This is the first study to demonstrate therapeutic benefit with antimicrobials to a chronic inflammatory arthritis possibly secondary to persistent Chlamydia.

The second, especially for Daunted shows the result of adding metronidizole to the regime!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... ol=iconfft

The course of treatment was only one week, but the positive effects were still being seen one year later. The metronidizole here was added almost by accident and the results were totally unexpected.

Sarah

nice detective work, Sarah