Oregano fighting flesh-eating bacteria and other cupboard cures

A science editor friend of mine, who you shall know as "sciwrytress," took a fancy to the earlier flesh-eating bacteria story. After a little digging around on the topic, she found a few instances of natural antibiotics found in most of our cupboards. Oregano oil, chili peppers, turmeric are among the bacteria and/or parasite fighters.

Sciwrytress adds, "I think it works because plants use these kinds of chemicals to protect themselves from bacteria, etc. and hit upon something hard to evolve resistance against. There were other studies around the time of this last one showing that the herbs and spices most frequently used by people in a given region of the world (curry in the Indian peninsula, cilantro and chilies in Mexico,parsley and onions in parts of Europe, etc.) happened to be the ones most effective against local bacteria and parasites. People are pretty smart, huh?..."

Here is a quick survey of just some of the research using spices:

Oregano:
In 2001, Science Daily published a report from the Georgetown University Medical Center on their research with oregano oil and carvacrol, a chemical component of oregano which has also been show to kill off E. Coli. Georgetown University researchers combined oregano oil with staphylococcus bacteria in a test tube and observed that even low doses stopped the bacteria from growing, and in fact, stood up to the staph as well as traditional antibiotics. You can read the full story here. Just so we're all on the same page, staph infections are not "staff" infections and hence they are not necessarily something that you get from the staff at a hospital. Although it can happen.

Chilies, or capsaicin:
In 2001, the New Scientist reported a study at Virginia Tech University where scientists fed chickens with the capsaicin, the chemical that provides the hotness in chili peppers. The birds were then infected with Salmonella enteritidis. The chickens didn't have a spicier flavor but they had a significantly lower number of germs in their organs compared to those birds who weren't fedcapsaicin. For more information, check out the full story from the New Scientist " Chilli-eating chickens repel bacteria."

Turmeric, specifically the yellow bit curcumin:
In 2005, the New Scientist reported research on curcumin from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. The scientists tested the effects of curcumin on mice and found that five daily doses of the spice reduced the number of plasmodium berghei parasites in the bloodstream. You can read the rest in article "Spice takes sting out of malaria." An even more interesting follow up to this research is available on SciDevNet " "Turmeric can combat malaria, cancer virus and HIV."
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We have every reason to worry about the overuse of antibiotics and the emergence of super bugs, but this research should give us some hope. We may discover that some of those old folk remedies, which were so easily dismissed by the medical establishment, could be just what the doctor ordered.

For more on the medicinal properties of chilies, turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, nutmeg, saffron, garlic and onions can be found on the website for the Royal Society of Chemistry http://www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/issues/2006May/SpicingupChemistry.asp