Mud, the new antibacterial agent

[Guest guest]

Some promising new research on mud's antibacterial properties.

Not just any mud, though, only certain muds.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080406/hl_hsn/mudharnessedtofightinfections

THe article notes that mud is also used in GI ills.

" For hundreds of thousands of years, clays have been used for wound-healing and

even

gastrointestinal problems, " noted study co-author E. Haydel, an

assistant

professor in the School of Life Sciences at the Arizona State University Center

for

Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology in Tempe. " And there are a lot of people out

there

who already use mud therapeutically, without really knowing how it's working. "

" And now we're seeing effectiveness in the lab, from a microbiological

standpoint, " she

added. " So now, the question is: How can this translate into something

practical? "

***

BTW, the use of mud to treat stomach ills may have been a trick

picked up from our evolutionary forbears, as it is a " trick " practiced

by apes to this day.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?

xml=/earth/2008/04/01/scimonkey101.xml & page=1

Consuming a particular kind of soil, as Krief and her colleagues at the

Muséum

National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris reported recently in the journal

Naturwissenschaften,

increases the potency of ingested plants, such as the leaves of trichilia

rubescens, which

have anti-malarial properties.

Her team collected earth eaten by chimpanzees, as well as leaves from young T.

rubescens

trees in the same area. All the soil was rich in the clay mineral kaolinite, the

principal

component of many anti-diarrhoea medicines.

Clays can bind mycotoxins (fungal toxins), endotoxins (internal toxins secreted

by

pathogens), man-made toxic chemicals, bacteria and viruses. They also act as an

antacid

and absorb excess fluids.

The scientists replicated the effects of mastication, gastric and intestinal

digestion in the

laboratory and were surprised. Before being mixed with the soil, the digested

leaves had

no significant effects.

However, when the leaves and soil were digested together, the mixture developed

clear

anti-malarial properties. " This overlapping use by humans and apes is

interesting from

both evolutionary and conservation perspectives, " says Krief. " Saving apes and

their forests

is also important for human health. "

Mara