My world shook today, a good three feet. Maybe three miles.

In the Health & Wellness Section of the Wall Street Journal, an article (Spoonful of Sugar) mentions all of these terms in one place:

  1. Persister cells
  2. Chronic bacterial infections
  3. Biofilm

When a mainstream conservative publication mentions these “radical” ideas to the public, even on page D4, it’s an indicator of progress within public discourse on what some see as a very prickly issue: chronic bacterial infection.

Why do bugs set up shop inside our human bodies and stay there, quietly? That’s what microbes have learned to do over 3.4 billion years. That’s 3,400,000,000 years. They learned how to create slimy communities, slow down their metabolism and suspend their lives indefinitely – just like in science fiction movies.

It’s an interesting column (commenting on a Nature article) discussing how sugars can be combined with antibiotics to “coax” dormant bacteria (persisters, which are metabolically slower) into life, making them easier prey for certain antibiotics or the immune system.

It’s too bad the article did not mention the carefully studied effects of xylitol, a simple sugar that has been used by the Finnish (et al) for many years. The Finnish have found that xylitol significantly reduces cavities, helps bone remineralization,  eliminate middle ear infections, even tamp down yeast infections (candida).

How do I know this? As part of our film production, I interviewed a really smart, caring man named Dr. Lon Jones, who figured out that xylitol helps eliminate bacterial biofilm infections. After he helped his grandchildren get better, he went on to start a company called Xlear, which makes nasal washes and toothpastes to help people get rid of “persistent” bacterial infections. Otherwise known as biofilms…

Thank you Ann, Melinda, Laura and the WSJ for staying on top of the news and maybe even going out on a limb on a controversial subject. If you’ve not read or seen my video interviews with bacterial biofilm experts, see this unique research on my biofilm community site.

I’ll leave you with a quote from one of the other interviewees, a microbiologist with many decades of clinical and academic experience:

“..In fact, the earliest form of survival was multiple organisms recognizing each other, there was no cloud lining, there was limited water; there was UV or radiation, there was a temperature gradient, that the survivability of microbes were 3.4 billion years ago was dependent upon organisms living in a community…”