Researchers at Washington State University have found that acompound in garlic is 100 times more effective than two popular antibiotics at fighting the Campylobacter bacterium, one of the most common causes of intestinal illness.Their work was recently published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. The discovery opens the door to new treatments for raw andprocessed meats and food preparation surfaces. "This work is very exciting to me because it shows that thiscompound has the potential to reduce disease-causing bacteria inthe environment and in our food supply," says Dr. Xiaonan Lu, apostdoctoral researcher and lead author of the paper. "This is the first step in developing or thinking about newintervention strategies," says Michael Konkel, a co-author who hasbeen researching Campylobacter jejuni for 25 years. " Campylobacter ", says Konkel, "is simply the most common bacterial cause offood-borne illness in the United States and probably the world."Some 2.4 million Americans are affected every year, according tothe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with symptomsincluding diarrhea , cramping, abdominal pain and fever . The bacteria are also responsible for triggering nearly one-thirdof the cases of a rare paralyzing disorder known as Guillain-Barr syndrome . Most infections stem from eating raw or undercooked poultry orfoods that have been cross-contaminated via surfaces or utensilsused to prepare poultry. Lu and his colleagues looked at the ability of the garlic-derivedcompound, diallyl sulfide, to kill the bacterium when it isprotected by a slimy biofilm that makes it 1,000 times moreresistant to antibiotics than the free floating bacterial cell.They found the compound can easily penetrate the protective biofilmand kill bacterial cells by combining with a sulfur-containingenzyme, subsequently changing the enzyme's function and effectivelyshutting down cell metabolism. The researchers found the diallyl sulfide was as effective as 100times as much of the antibiotics erythromycin and ciprofloxacin andwould often work in a fraction of the time. Two previous works published last year by Lu and WSU colleagues in Applied and Environmental Microbiology and Analytical Chemistry found diallyl sulfide and other organosulfur compounds effectivelykill important foodborne pathogens, such as Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7. Konkel cautions that the recent work is still at the basic stage,well removed from an actual application. While eating garlic is agenerally healthy practice, it is unlikely to prevent Campylobacter -related food poisoning . However, "diallyl sulfide may be useful in reducing the levels ofthe Campylobacter in the environment and to clean industrial food processingequipment, as the bacterium is found in a biofilm in bothsettings." "Diallyl sulfide could make many foods safer to eat", says BarbaraRasco, a co-author on all three recent papers and Lu's advisor forhis doctorate in food science. "It can be used to clean foodpreparation surfaces and as a preservative in packaged foods likepotato and pasta salads, coleslaw and deli meats". "This would not only extend shelf life but it would also reduce thegrowth of potentially bad bacteria," she says. Additional References Citations. I am an expert from herbal-weightloss-capsule.com, while we provides the quality product, such as China Herbal Slimming Tea , St. nirvana Slimming Herbs Capsule Manufacturer, Meizitang Botanical Slimming Softgel,and more.
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