- Brazilian researchers have discovered that an extract of the herb Turnera ulmifolia helps the antibiotics gentamicin and kanamycin in treating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

MRSA infections can range from boils to more severe infections of the blood, lungs and the sites of surgery. Such infections can often be treated only with expensive intravenous antibiotics.

The plant appears to exert this effect by modifying the resistance of the microbe, according to a report published online in BioMed Central’s Complementary and Alternative Medicine, by Dr. Henrique D.M. Coutinho of the University of the Region of Cariri in Crato, Brazil, and colleagues.

T. ulmifolia is a small annual herb found in northern Brazil. The herb - locally considered a weed - contains flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins and phenolic compounds. It is used in alternative medicine primarily as an anti-inflammatory and expectorant.

When Coutinho’s team tested an extract of T. ulmifolia for activity against an MRSA strain in test tubes, the herb alone did not show substantial activity. When combined with gentamicin or kanamycin, however, the herb made these drugs much stronger.

“The results obtained indicate that T. ulmifolia could serve as a source of plant-derived natural products with antibiotic resistance-modifying activity to be used against (resistant bacteria, such) as MRSA strains acquired from hospital and community,” the Brazilian team concludes.

SOURCE: BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2009.