Have you ever heard about Lyme disease? But you are definitely familiar with ticks. If you spend some time outdoors, you have probably encountered them at some point. These particular insects are the main reasons for the spread of this serious infection.
What Is Lyme Disease?
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection spread to humans by infected black-legged and deer ticks. This disease can affect people regardless of their age. The CDC states that it can infect around 300,000 people every year.
How to Diagnose Lyme Disease?
Proper diagnosis of this infection can be really difficult since it is characterized by symptoms similar to other diseases. However, if detected on time, it can be treated effectively. But, if the treatment is delayed it can seriously affect almost every organ in the human body, especially the brain, heart, joints, and muscles.
Symptoms of Lyme Disease
They include:
- Chills
- Fever
- Muscle aches
- Sweats
- Joint pain
- Nausea
- A rash that looks like a bull’s eye
The Conventional Treatment
Traditionally, Lyme disease is treated with antibiotics but they often treat the surface aspects of this infection while leaving the disease within the body. In this way, it can cause even more serious harm.
However, a new preclinical study has found that stevia leaf extract acts as a powerful antibiotic agent against the Borrelia Burgdorferi, the pathogen responsible for Lyme disease.
The Study…
The Department of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of New Haven, CT has conducted this particular study. The European Journal of Microbiology & Immunology has published the findings.
The researchers have directly compared the conventional antibiotics to an alcohol extract of a whole stevia leaf. They have analyzed stevia’s ability to kill different forms of Borrelia burgdorferi. This pathogen can exist in various forms and is characterized by high resistance to antibiotics.
So, most of the conventional antibiotics could not treat this serious infection. Therefore, the researchers have found that stevia leaf extract is an effective agent against various morphological forms of this pathogen.
Further on, the researchers found that 10-20% of the Lyme disease patients treated with conventional antibiotics, suffered serious side-effects after 2-4 weeks of their treatment. These side-effects include pain, fatigue, muscle aches, and joint aches.
Some patients even experienced serious side effects from the Lyme disease antibiotics for more than six months.
According to the researchers, stevia leaf extract contains phytochemicals that are rich in potent antimicrobial properties that can treat many pathogens. This means that stevia leaf extract is an effective natural agent against B. burgdorferi. Although still a preliminary study, it is a great foundation for future research.
This study has provided highly beneficial findings which point out that whole stevia leaf extract can play an important role in the treatment of Lyme disease.
Source David Wolfe | Green Med Info | CDC | Green Med Info | Lyme Disease | NCBI Image Source Integrated Health Clinic
