Antibiogram of Biofield-Treated Shigella boydii: Global Burden of Infections

What is it about?

Bacillary dysentery and acute gastroenteritis caused by infection of Shigella species are major public health burden in India and its neighboring countries. Emergence of antimicrobial resistance threatens to render current treatments ineffective. The current study was attempted to investigate the effect of biofield treatment on Shigella boydii (S. boydii) with respect of antimicrobial susceptibility assay, biochemical characteristics and biotyping. The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC 9207) strain of S. boydii was used in this experiment. The study was conducted in revived and lyophilized state of S. boydii. Both revived (Group; Gr. II) and lyophilized (Gr. III) strain of S. boydii were subjected to Mr. Trivedi’s biofield treatment. Gr. II was assessed on day 5 and day 10, while Gr. III on day 10 with respect to control (Gr. I). Sensitivity pattern of amoxicillin/k-clavulanate was improved from intermediate (I) to susceptible (S) with correspond to MIC value was also reduced by two folds (16/8 to ≤ 8/4 µg/mL) in both the treated groups as compared to control. The antimicrobial susceptibility of S. boydii showed 15% alteration in Gr. II on day 5, while significant (40%) alteration was found on day 10 as compared to control. The MIC values of antimicrobials for S. boydii also showed 12.50% alteration in Gr. II on day 5 while, significant alteration (59.38%) of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value was found in Gr. II on day 10 as compared to control. It was observed that overall 69.70% biochemical reactions were changed in which 66.67% alteration was found in Gr. II on day 10 with respect to control. Moreover, biotype numbers were changed in all the treated groups without alteration of organism as compared to control. These results suggested that biofield treatment had significant impact on S. boydii in Gr. II on day 10 with respect to antimicrobial susceptibility, MIC and biochemical reactions pattern.

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Why is it important?

Shigella boydii (S. boydii) is a non-motile, non-spore forming, non-lactose fermenting and Gram-negative rod shape bacterium that belongs to the family of Enterobacteriaceae. S. boydii mainly causes infections through contaminated food/water/soil or with fecal matter. It inhabits in the gut and rectum of humans and other primates [1, 2]. S. boydii contains 20 distinct antigenic serotypes [3]. Shigella species are highly infective and virulent due to release of a potent cytotoxin known as ‘Shigatoxin’ which causes severe and sometimes fatal disease [4]. It does not produce gas from carbohydrates but ferments glucose predominantly which is one of its characteristic features [5]. The manifestations of major clinical complications in S. boydii infected patients include, shigellosis (watery diarrhoea with mild vomiting), reactive arthritis and hemolytic uremic syndrome [6]. According to the reports of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA Shigella is estimated to cause 80 - 165 million cases of disease and 600,000 deaths per year worldwide. Therapeutic uses of antimicrobials against shigellosis can slightly shorten the duration of symptoms. Fluoroquinolone or ceftriaxone is the drug of choice to treat this disease. However, due to high tendency of multidrug resistance globally including fluoroquinolones and newer cephalosporins, particularly in South and East Asia [7], some alternative strategies are needed to treat against strains of S. boydii. Based on National Institute of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NIH/NCCAM) has reported that energy therapies either biofield or electromagnetic based involve use of this energy fields to promote health and healing [8]. Harold Saxton Burr had performed the detailed studies on correlation of electric current with physiological process and concluded that every single process in the human body had an electrical significance [9]. Recently, it was discovered that all electrical processes happening in body have strong relationship with magnetic field as described by Ampere’s law, which states that moving charge produces magnetic fields in surrounding space [10, 11]. According to Rivera-Ruiz et al. it was reported that electrocardiography has been extensively used to measure the biofield of human body [12]. Thus, human has the ability to harness the energy from environment or Universe and can transmit into any living or nonliving object(s) around the Globe. The objects always receive the energy and respond into useful way that is called biofield energy and the process is known as biofield treatment (The Trivedi Effect®). Mr. Trivedi’s unique biofield treatment has been known to transform the structural, physical and thermal properties of several metals in material science [13-15], improved the overall productivity of crops [16, 17], altered characteristics features of microbes [18-20] and improved growth and anatomical characteristics of various medicinal plants [21, 22]. Due to the clinical significance of this organism and literature reports, biofield treatment as an alternative approach, the present work was undertaken to evaluate the impact of biofield treatment on S. boydii in relation to antimicrobials susceptibility, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and biotyping based on various biochemical characters.

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