WASHINGTON: Dirt may
soon be prescribed by
doctors,
if researchers investigating the age-old healing properties of a
type of French clay have their way.
Previous research has shown that the clay fights against a
"flesh-eating" bug (M ulcerans) on the rise in Africa and the germ
called MRSA, which was blamed for the recent deaths of two children
in Virginia and Mississippi.
Now an interdisciplinary team of microbiologists and mineralogists
is trying to determine exactly how the clay cures.
"There are very compelling reports of clay treating
infections,
but that's anecdotal evidence, not science. They would mix clay with
water and make a paste and put it on the horrible wounds," said
Lynda Williams, an associate research professor in the School of
Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, Tempe.
Williams is coordinating three teams of US researchers (at ASU, USGS,
and SUNY-Buffalo) studying healing clays under a two-year, $440,000
grant from the National Institutes of Health-National Center for
Complementary and Alternative
Medicine.
"We're beginning to generate the first scientific evidence of why
some minerals might kill bacterial organisms and thers might not,"
said Williams.
In laboratory tests at ASU’s Biodesign Institute, co-PI Haydel, an
assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences, showed that one
clay killed bacteria responsible for many human illnesses, including:
Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA),
penicillin-resistant S aureus (PRSA), and pathogenic Escherichia
coli (E coli).
It also killed Mycobacterium ulcerans, a germ related to leprosy and
tuberculosis that causes the flesh-eating disease Buruli ulcer.
Original source:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2494025,prtpage-1.cms
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