Category: Health

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Why Predicting Antimicrobial Resistance is Critical

Antibiotic resistance is one of the most serious and silent health threats of our time. In hospitals—where vulnerable patients and complex infections are concentrated—the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains can severely undermine treatment effectiveness, prolong hospital stays, and increase the risk of complications and mortality. For this reason, predicting antimicrobial resistance is of crucial importance.

Antimicrobial resistance prediction – Image generated with ChatGPT

What Is Antibiotic Resistance?


Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics – are medicines used to prevent and treat infectious diseases in humans, animals and plants. Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites no longer respond to antimicrobial medicines. As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become difficult or impossible to treat, increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness, disability and death [1] .

This phenomenon, accelerated by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in both human and veterinary medicine, has made many common infections harder—or even impossible—to treat. In hospital settings, this issue is especially critical. Patients are often immunocompromised or recovering from invasive procedures, creating ideal conditions for resistant infections to spread rapidly.

The Importance of Prediction


Predicting antibiotic resistance is emerging as one of the most promising strategies to tackle the problem. This isn’t about guesswork—it involves the use of mathematical models and predictive algorithms that analyze clinical, microbiological, and epidemiological data to anticipate resistance trends [2].

Being able to effectively predict antibiotic resistance offers several critical advantages. First and foremost, it helps avoid the use of ineffective treatments, which in turn reduces the misuse and overuse of antibiotics—a major factor in the rise of resistance. It also allows healthcare providers to respond more quickly to outbreaks of resistant infections, containing their spread before they become unmanageable. Another key benefit is the ability to personalize therapies. By understanding the specific characteristics of both the patient and the infecting pathogen, doctors can choose treatments that are more likely to be effective from the start. Finally, prediction supports better overall hospital management. With accurate data and forecasts, hospitals can implement smarter prevention and infection control strategies, making care more efficient and safer for everyone.

Data and Models: A Cross-Disciplinary Effort


At the heart of this approach lie mathematical models and AI tools capable of analyzing vast amounts of data—from bacterial genomic sequences to clinical case statistics and environmental information from hospital wards. These tools can identify hidden patterns and critical correlations that would be hard to spot through traditional analysis [3].

Building and refining such systems requires collaboration across disciplines: engineers, physicians, microbiologists, physicists, and computer scientists all contribute. It’s a powerful example of how interdisciplinary work is essential in addressing complex challenges like antibiotic resistance.

Looking Ahead


While antibiotic resistance is a natural and partially unavoidable process, its impact can be mitigated through targeted prevention, monitoring, and response strategies. Predicting antimicrobial resistance plays a key role in this effort—it offers a way to gain time, optimize treatment, and ultimately save lives.

Investing in research, predictive technologies, and interdisciplinary collaboration is no longer optional—it’s necessary. In the fight against resistant bacteria, every well-timed decision makes a difference.

References

[1] Antimicrobial resistance – WHO

[2] Kim JI,,Maguire F,,,,Tsang KK, Gouliouris T,,Peacock SJ, McAllister TA, McArthur AG, Beiko RG,2022.Machine Learning for Antimicrobial Resistance Prediction: Current Practice, Limitations, and Clinical Perspective. Clin Microbiol Rev 35:e00179-21.

[3] Condorelli, C., Nicitra, E., Musso, N., Bongiorno, D., Stefani, S., Gambuzza, L. V., … & Frasca, M. (2024). Prediction of antimicrobial resistance of Klebsiella pneumoniae from genomic data through machine learning. Plos one, 19(9), e0309333.

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Nature health benefits: summary

Nature is all around us; it’s the trees that we see on the path to work, but we walk past them like any other day, without paying attention to them because we are absorbed in our routine and in our thoughts. We are always checking our phones or putting on headphones, isolating ourselves more and more from nature. We are disconnected.  

When COVID-19 hit the world, the disconnect became clear, with people being confined to their homes, unable to go outside. The thing we once took for granted was taken away from us. At that moment, people realized the importance of going outside for their mental and physical health.   

Nature isn’t just this aesthetic thing to look at; it goes deeper than that, and, in this post, we will go through all the benefits nature has to offer for your health!

Mental health benefits

If you ever feel stressed about your job or any relevant issue, take a stroll around nature! The good thing is you don’t have to go for a strenuous hike to benefit from nature’s remedy. Indeed, a 20-min walk in nature will do the job. It lowers your cortisol levels, according to one study that measured salivary levels of cortisol in participants before and after going into nature.  

But it goes beyond that; nature immersion doesn’t just leave you feeling less tense but also boosts your mood, reduces anxiety, and lowers the risk of depression.  

Additionally, nature improves cognitive functioning and, particularly, attentional functioning through the recovery of attention fatigue due to our overly stimulating environment. 

Physical health benefits

Immersing yourself in nature also has benefits for your physical health. It can lower blood pressure and heart rate, having protective effects on cardiovascular diseases.  

Also, it has been demonstrated that people who frequently engage in nature visits have higher levels of immune cells, such as natural killer cells, and molecules associated with a well-functioning immunity compared to those who don’t.  

In relation to stress, being in nature also helps regulate the autonomic nervous system. It increases the parasympathetic activity, which is associated with relaxing activities, and on the other hand, lowers sympathetic activity associated with taking action.  

In addition, bathing in nature has beneficial effects on sleep. Sleep quality, depth, and sleep time were improved after 2 hours of nature immersion. 

Your outlook on nature matters !

While nature offers many benefits, your outlook on nature might have consequences on how much you can gain from it. In a study, they found that people who were more connected to nature benefitted more from its effects than those who were less connected to it. 

Grounding

Benefits of nature on physical health – here inflammation using infrared imaging

If you want to take it a step further, you can go grounding. Grounding refers to the direct contact of the skin with the ground, to put it simpler it’s going barefoot. When the skin touches the ground, free electrons from the earth’s surface spread into the body and have an anti-inflammatory effect. This effect can be observed through infrared imaging; for example, in the picture above, at the beginning, a lot of areas are colored red, which indicates inflammation in those areas. A few days later, after grounded sleep, the affected areas turned back to normal, which can be seen in the infrared images. 

Conclusion

Nature proves to be an accessible tool for improving both mental and physical health. There’s no excuse for not spending time in nature; any duration is better than nothing and it’s free. Also, you don’t have to spend hours in nature to benefit from its powers. Lastly, try to improve your connection to nature to improve its effects.

References

Zhang Z, Ye B, Yang W, Gao Y. Effect of Nature Space on Enhancing Humans’ Health and Well-Being: An Integrative Narrative Review. Forests [Internet]. 2024 Jan 4;15(1):100. Available from: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/15/1/100 

Oschman J, Chevalier G, Brown R. The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Journal of Inflammation Research [Internet]. 2015 Mar 1;83. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4378297/ 

Schertz KE, Berman MG. Understanding nature and its cognitive benefits. Current Directions in Psychological Science [Internet]. 2019 Jun 24;28(5):496–502. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419854100 

Chang CC, Lin BB, Feng X, Andersson E, Gardner J, Astell-Burt T. A lower connection to nature is related to lower mental health benefits from nature contact. Scientific Reports [Internet]. 2024 Mar 20;14(1). Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-56968-5 

Hunter MR, Gillespie BW, Chen SYP. Urban nature experiences reduce stress in the context of daily life based on salivary biomarkers. Frontiers in Psychology [Internet]. 2019 Apr 4;10. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00722