More than 3 million people a year get diagnosed with strep throat, however since it is a minor illness that is very easily treated, people do not see the issue with getting sick almost every year. Because bacteria reproduce in just a few days, many generations of bacteria go by very quickly; and every time they reproduce, they are also evolve.  Meaning, every time one takes antibiotics, the bacteria becomes more and more resistant to it, until we can’t kill them anymore with the same antibiotic.

For many humans around the world, the thought of not being able to fix a simple bacterial infection with an antibiotic is quite frightening; however recent discoveries about the human microbiome puts this fear away.

Bacteria at the microscopic level

There are many helpful bacteria that live in the throat and mouth. Most of these helpful bacteria are probiotics.  The probiotic that specifically attacks strep, is actually another strain of strep called Streptococcus salivarius K12. This probiotic produces two lantibiotics that attack Streptococcus pyogenes, the species that are responsible for the known strep throat.

From this knowledge, scientists did an experiment that gave one group a tablet that, when chewed, released billions of colonies of S. salivarius K12 and gave another group a tablet that did nothing. The group that received the probiotic, showed a 90% reduction in strep episodes than the group that received nothing. This information also helped decrease the time on antibiotics for strep by 30 times.

You can buy doses of S. salivarius K12 here if you are interested in not only staying away from strep throat, but also improving your overall oral microbiome.

If you are interested in reading more about not just the mouth and oral human microbiome, but the whole entire human microbiome; click here!