Interference of nutraceuticals on the activity of antibacterial drugs against clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract

Drug-food interactions may be beneficial for the treatment of several diseases, mostly due to the increased absorption effect resulting from the combinations to nutrients. However, they may also pose risks to treatments: drug-nutrient complexes may be not properly absorbed, hampering pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics parameters. Here we used a standardized method of our group to investigate the effect of nutraceuticals compounds (melatonin, vitamin C, vitamin D and lutein) on the activity of clinically relevant antimicrobial drugs used against clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We noticed that the interactions did not follow a regular or predictable pattern. For Gram-negative species, most of the synergistic interactions were observed with melatonin and vitamin C. Vitamin D produced synergism in some combinations against S. aureus.