Healing Clay
by Margaret Coulombe
Clay is most commonly associated with the sublime experience of the European spa. Visitors have been masked, soaked, and basted with this touted curative since the Romans ruled. But go back further still and you’ll find that clay has had a role in human health as ancient as man.
The first proof of the therapeutic use of clays was incised on clay tablets in Mesopotamia around 2500 B.C. However, some scholars believe that prehistoric ancestors such as Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis used ochres to cure wounds as well as paint caves. Ochres are a mixture of clay and iron hydroxides.
In Egypt, Cleopatra used clays to preserve her complexion. But the Pharaohs’ physicians used the material as anti-inflammatory agents and antiseptics. It was also an ingredient used for making mummies.
Despite a long history of use, some very fundamental questions remain about the benefits of clay.
Can clays cure? At Arizona State University, geochemist Lynda Williams and microbiologist Shelley Haydel have teamed up to find out. If their research into the antibacterial properties of clays realizes its full potential, smectite clay might one day rise above purely cosmetic use. It might take its place comfortably with antibacterial behemoths like penicillin.
“People are interested in natural cures and I think that there is a lot of nature that we don’t understand yet,” Williams says. “What if we unearth a mechanism for controlling microbes that had never been discovered before? It is these avenues, at the boundaries of scientific discovery, at the edges of my field and knowledge (and Shelley’s), where such discoveries are made.”
Williams and Haydel’s research is an unusual pairing. Both work in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. But both are pursuing different lines of scientific discovery.
Williams is an associate research professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration. She studies clay geochemistry. Haydel is an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences and with the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccinology in the Biodesign Institute. She studies tuberculosis.
This disparate duo is attempting to tease apart the mechanisms that allow two clays mined in France to heal Buruli ulcer. The flesh-eating bacterial disease is found primarily in central and western Africa.
source: Arizona State University:
Clay may be best cure for infections
27 Oct 2007, 0416 hrs IST, ANI
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.
source: The Times of India:
'Healing Clays' Show Promise For Fighting Deadly MRSA Superbug Infections, Other Diseases
ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) — Mud may be coming to a medicine cabinet or pharmacy near you. Scientists in Arizona report that minerals from clay could form the basis of a new generation of inexpensive, highly-effective antimicrobials for fighting MRSA infections that are moving out of health care settings and into the community. These "superbugs" are increasingly resistant to multiple antibiotics and cause thousands of deaths each year.
Unlike conventional antibiotics that are often administered by injection or pills, the so-called "healing clays" could be used as rub-on creams or ointments to keep MRSA infections from spreading, the researchers say. The clays also show promise against a wide range of other harmful bacteria, including those that cause skin infections and food poisoning, the scientists add. Their study, one of the first to explore the antimicrobial activity of natural clays in detail, was presented April 6, at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Clays have been used for thousands of years as a remedy for infected wounds, indigestion, and other health problems, either by applying clay to the skin or eating it. Today, clays are commonly used at health spas in the form of mud baths and facials. Armed with new investigative tools, researchers are beginning to explore their health claims scientifically.
"Clays are little chemical drug-stores in a packet," said study co-leader Lynda Williams, Ph.D., a geochemist at Arizona State University in Tempe. "They contain literally hundreds of elements. Some of these compounds are beneficial but others aren't. Our goal is to find out what nature is doing and see if we can find a better way to kill harmful bacteria."
In the new study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, Willams and her colleagues collected more than 20 different clay samples from around the world to investigate their antibacterial activities. In collaboration with study co-leader Shelley Haydel, Ph.D., a microbiologist with Arizona State, the researchers tested each of the clays against several different bacteria known to cause human diseases. These bacteria include MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), Mycobacterium ulcerans (a microbe related to the tuberculosis bacterium that causes a flesh-eating disease known as Buruli ulcer), as well as E. coli and Salmonella (which cause food poisoning). The researchers identified at least three clays that killed or significantly reduced the growth of these bacteria.
The researchers are working to identify the specific compounds in the clays that may be responsible for its antibacterial activity. Using electron and ion microscopy, the researchers are also exploring how these antibacterial clays interact with the cell membranes of the bacteria in order to find out how they kill.
Williams and Haydel are continuing to test new clay samples from around the world to determine their germ-fighting potential. They hope that the more promising clays will be developed into a skin ointment or pill to fight a variety of bacterial infections or possibly as an agricultural wash to prevent food poisoning. Several companies have expressed interest in forming partnerships to develop the clays as antimicrobial agents, the scientists say.
But ordinary mud can contain dangerous bacteria as well as toxic minerals like arsenic and mercury, the researchers point out. Until healing clays are developed that are scientifically proven, which could take several years, handwashing and other proper hygiene techniques may be your best bet for keeping MRSA and other harmful bacteria at bay, they say.
source: Science Daily: