Drug-Resistant Bacteria Trumped with…Clay From Canada


Antibiotic resistant bacteria pose a serious threat to public health, often infecting vulnerable populations like hospital patients. But researchers in British Columbia may have found a solution that was hiding just below their feet all along: clay.

Mineral Canadian clay exhibits antibacterial activity against a group of pathogens that are highly resistant to antibiotics, according to new research from the University of British Columbia.

The researchers tested the clay’s reaction to a group of bacteria collectively known as ESKAPE pathogens – Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species – named for their ability to resist the effects of antibiotics. As of 2008, they were responsible for the majority of hospital infections in the US.

[b]"Infections caused by ESKAPE bacteria are essentially untreatable and contribute to increasing mortality in hospitals,"[\b] says Julian Davies, co-author of the study and microbiologist at the University of British Columbia.

The researchers incubated various strains of pathogens with clay samples or only with water as a control and found that 16 strains of the bacteria samples died when incubated with clay.

The clay, known as Kisomeet, came from a deposit northwest of Vancouver, and has been used by aboriginal Canadians for several centuries to treat ulcerative colitis, stomach ulcers, arthritis, and skin irritations, according to anecdotal reports.

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