Tea or coffee can protect from MRSA superbug

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJul 14 2011

According to the latest study in the Annals of Family Medicine, people who drink tea or coffee regularly may be less likely to carry the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection in their nostrils.

MRSA, a staph infection-causing bacterium that is resistant to common antibiotics, is potentially lethal, causing pneumonia and blood infections. MRSA caused approximately 95,000 severe infections nationwide in 2005 and 19,000 Americans lost their lives to it.  Furthermore, rates of infection have been rising since the 1990s

Lead researcher Dr. Eric M. Matheson of the University of South Carolina, Charleston explained that the team found that topically applied or inhaled tea extracts showed anti-MRSA properties. The team tested 5500 people. 1.4 percent of the random sample of population was found to carry MRSA in their noses; this number decreased by 50% among people who said that they drink coffee and hot tea.

Matheson added, “…but you can never conclude causation from an association… I can't tell you that this finding isn't just a coincidence” since several factors including age and income were not accounted for.  Still, when researches tried to account for these factors, there still seemed to be a more than tenuous relationship between drinking hot tea and coffee and lower rates of MRSA. “Our findings raise the possibility of a promising new method to decrease MRSA nasal carriage that is safe, inexpensive, and easily accessible,” Matheson wrote.

It is still unclear whether carriers of MRSA are more likely to progress to active infection than non-carriers. A small segment of the population carries MRSA in the nose or skin but does not get sick.