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http://health. usnews.com/ usnews/health/ healthday/ 080406/mud- harnessed-
to-fight-infections .htm
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Mud Harnessed to Fight Infections
Researchers searched world, found 3 clays that beat back toughest
germs
By Alan Mozes
Posted 4/6/08
SUNDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) — It looks like dirt might one day
be better than soap at keeping harmful bacteria at bay.
Arizona scientists report they have found a host of anti-microbial
minerals in mud that could be the makings of a new generation of
unconventional but effective creams to combat the nastiest germs.
Increasingly dangerous antibiotic-resistan t “superbugs” — such as
methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) — are the primary
targets of these new medicinal clay cocktails, the researchers said.
“For hundreds of thousands of years, clays have been used for wound-
healing and even gastrointestinal problems,” noted study co-author
Shelley 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?”
Haydel and her team were expected to present their mud therapy
research April 6 at the American Chemical Society annual meeting, in
New Orleans.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health, Haydel and her
colleagues collected 20 different clay samples from all over the
world. After categorizing each clay’s composition, they then tested
for antimicrobial properties against a wide range of different
bacteria, including: antibiotic-resistan t strains of MRSA; the flesh-
eating Mycobacterium ulcerans; and E. coli and salmonella.
In the lab, Haydel and her colleagues identified three clays that
appeared to kill or substantially reduce growth among all the tested
bacteria, including MRSA.
“The big deal with MRSA is that it starts out as a topical infection,
but once it gets into the bloodstream, you get into a huge problem,”
Haydel observed. “So, while we’re certainly not proposing to inject
this directly into the bloodstream, we’re hoping to stop that skin-to-
blood transition from happening.”
With the aid of electron and ion microscopes, the team is now
tracking the way in which the most promising clays interact with
bacterial membranes on the cellular level to pin down the source of
their germ-fighting power.
Though optimistic about the long-range prospects for developing mud-
based medicines –even perhaps in pill form — the researchers
stressed that good hygiene is still the best bulwark against
bacteria. And they advised consumers against digging for medical gold
in their own backyards.
“You can move over just 100 yards from a geological site, and the
mineralogical makeup of the new site can be completely different,”
Haydel noted. “We see that all the time, with different batches of
clay. Or we even sometimes see — as with two clays from France that
we looked at — two clays where both are the same on the
mineralogical and chemical level, but one kills bacteria, and the
other doesn’t. So, we have a lot to figure out.”
Then there’s the fact that dirt can also harbor bad bacteria and
toxic minerals such as mercury and arsenic, the researchers said. So,
hand washing isn’t about to go out of style just yet.
Meanwhile, George A. O’Toole, an associate professor in the
department of microbiology and immunology at Dartmouth Medical School
in New Hampshire, described the research as “intriguing. “
“The effort to identify a new class of antibiotics is important,
because most of the varieties we now use have been around for the
last 40 years,” he noted. “However, typically when people look for
new naturally derived antibiotics, they focus on living biological
material, like plants. So, this is an interesting idea, in the sense
that here, they’re looking instead at an inorganic source like mud.”
“But I would say that, in the short term, the most likely application
will most be for the topical treatment of skin infections rather than
as an ingestible,” he added. “Because to use it as a pill, you have
to first identify the helpful compounds and then synthesize them in a
way that could be useful, which is a long and involved process.
Developing topical products is probably much easier.”
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