Pathogenic Mycoplasma Infections in Chronic Illnesses: General Considerations in Selecting Conventional and Integrative Treatments

Abstract

The presence of pathogenic mycoplasmas in various chronic illnesses and their successful suppression using conventional and integrative medicine approaches are reviewed. Evidence gathered over the last three decades has demonstrated the presence of pathogenic mycoplasma species in the blood, body fluids and tissues from patients with a variety of chronic clinical conditions: atypical pneumonia, asthma and other respiratory conditions; oral cavity infections; urogenital conditions; neurodegenerative and neurobehavioral diseases; autoimmune diseases; immunosuppressive diseases; inflammatory diseases; and illnesses and syndromes of unknown origin, such as fatiguing illnesses. Only recently have these small intracellular bacteria received attention as possible causative agents, cofactors or opportunistic infections or co-infections in these and other conditions. Their clinical management is often inadequate, primarily because of missed diagnosis, underand inadequate treatment and the presence of persister or dormant microorganisms due to biofilm, resistence and other mechanisms. Pathogenic Mycoplasma species infections have been suppressed slowly by anti-microbial and integrative treatments, resulting in gradual reductions in morbidity, but not in every patient. Even if mycoplasmas are not a cause or an initial trigger for many chronic illnesses, they appear to play important roles in the inception, progression, morbidity and relapse of chronic illnesses in rather large patient subsets. Ignoring such infections can result in failure to achieve eventual patient recovery, even with application of potentially curative treatments.

COVID-19 Coronavirus: Is Infection along with <i>Mycoplasma</i> or Other Bacteria Linked to Progression to a Lethal Outcome?

“…Some Mycoplasma species can directly cause host cell death, but a more common feature of pathogenic mycoplasma infections is the induction of host cytokines [62]. Indeed, cytokine-inducing activity is a general feature of most, if not all, pathogenic Mycoplasma species, and this important topic for COVID-19 disease will be discussed in the next section.…”

“…Another antibiotic active against mycoplasmas, doxycycline [62] [64] [73], might also be useful in COVID-19 because of its potential binding to rRNA and inhibition of microbial protein synthesis [86]. Indeed, doxycycline has proved to be an important option for chronic mycoplasma infections resistant to other treatments [62] [73], and its effectiveness in COVID-19 care might be more related to its suppression of bacterial growth than any anti-viral action.…”

“…Stricker and Fesler [99] suggested that patients who have COVID-19 disease should not progress to a fatal outcome, if their therapy includes combinations of antibiotics (including minocycline or doxycycline) used for tick-borne infections [99]. As we discussed previously, Lyme disease patients often have mycoplasma co-infections that are sensitive to minocycline and doxycycline [62] [75].…”

“…Thus mycoplasmas are often treated with anti-microbials that act on their metabolism, replication, synthetic machinery or other specific bacterial targets, even though the actions of these drugs are mainly bacterostatic [24] [62] [74]. Since most mycoplasmas are sensitive to tetracyclines (doxycycline, minocycline, among others) or macrolides (azithromycin, clarithromycin, among others), with some notable exceptions [62] [75] [76][77], these are often used for frontline treatment of Mycoplasma species, and quinolones (ciprofloxacin, sparfloxacin, levofloxacin, among others), are often used as alternative treatments[62] [76].…”

Mycoplasma Pneumoniae and Bronchial Asthma in Children

“…The causes of initial onset of asthma remains unclear and the causes and pathogenesis of this syndrome still remains incompletely understood [12] . It is not known whether these organisms were allowed to persist after an infection or were present prior to the development of asthma.…”