Smoking may increase resistance of Staphylococcus aureus to antibiotics

Tobacco could be a key contributor to one of the biggest health threats of our time: antibiotic resistance, according to a study by the University of Bath.^[1], tobacco can make some strains of Staphylococcus Aureus (golden staph) more resistant to antibiotics.

The experiment conducted by the researchers shows that exposure of the bacteria to cigarette smoke could cause stress in the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. In response to this attack, the bacteria then trigger an emergency reaction that leads to an increase in the mutation rate of its DNA. This phenomenon thus makes it more resistant. The authors of the article envisage that the resistance could extend to other antibiotics and not just the methicillin used for the experiment.

This experiment is crucial because it highlights the extremely important impact of smoke on antibiotic resistance. The authors of the article emphasize the increasing virulence of microbial cells following these reactions.

The damage to smokers' health is great: on the one hand, tobacco smoke seems to contribute to antibiotic resistance. On the other hand, smoking weakens smokers' immune defenses. Smokers' responsibility is not limited to their own health: antibiotic resistance constitutes a serious threat to the entire population, which is faced with increasingly virulent microbial strains.^[2].