Public talk: The natural approach to the treatment of chronic illnesses has an unsung champion in Ireland.
The Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC) at UCC is quietly uncovering natural approaches to the treatment of the MRSA superbug, Crohn's disease, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, dental caries and even bovine mastitis.
APC scientists recently came out of the lab into the public lecture theatre to talk about their work and its relevance to the Irish consumer and patient, to a packed audience, as part of a regular series of engagements with the public to which the APC has committed.
"It was a big turnout," said Catherine Buckley, one of the organisers at UCC. "And a lot of the audience were patients hoping to hear about new treatments."
APC chairman and professor of gastroenterology at Cork University Hospital, Fergus Shanahan, explained its purpose. "There are people out there with diseases and they want to know, and have a right to know, that we're doing the research, that somebody in our health service is focused on issues of concern to them. We want to let them know people are doing things."
Those patients are, generally, people with chronic illnesses related to the stomach and gut. So what of the science?
The APC takes an avowedly "natural" approach to scientific cures, an approach that Prof Shanahan is reluctant to define precisely for fear of being drawn into the wrong arguments. What he does say is: "Many modern medicines come from nature. But suppose I ask you would you want to be treated with a medicine that's taken from funghi or the soil, or with a treatment that's actually developed from bacteria that are naturally in your body. That has a lot of appeal to people."
And the APC leads the world in the cultivation of cures based on healthy human bacteria. The results of three APC research projects are examples of a radically new way forward for especially problematic diseases.
MRSA is a problem because of the massive increase in antibiotic use. Around 50-80 per cent of all antibiotics are given to animals in low doses to prevent infection. They are now used even in orchards. And, of course, over-prescription to humans has to shoulder a share of the blame.
At the APC, scientists have isolated a new anti-microbial agent, Lacticin 3147. It's derived from another probiotic, Lactococcus Lactis, found naturally in food and it's the work of a team collaborating with Prof Colin Hill, of the APC and UCC. Lacticin 3147 can kill the antibiotic-resistant bugs that are currently plaguing our hospitals.
Hill claims it is 100 times more active than conventional antibiotics but by being processed into a pharmaceutical grade drug, it may be a decade or more before it can be used to treat humans.
In one spectacular recent trial on animals, 11 cows dying from the complications of mastitis were given a live version of the drug, that is the actual live bacteria rather than a pharmaceutical compound. It saved all 11 from an early visit to the slaughterhouse.
Because it is a bacterium rather than a compound, will it move more quickly now to regulatory approval for use by humans?
Prof Shanahan is reserved about its prospects of an early entry into the market. "It could be used now as a skin treatment," he says, "but as a drug. . . we have to wait."
Pigs are a major reservoir of salmonella, passing the disease not only between each other but also to humans.
APC has successfully treated salmonella in the pig population by using bacteria from the pig's caecum (the equivalent of the human appendix). The bacteria they used were from the benign type that thrive in lactic acid and when trialed on pigs they showed that pigs exposed to salmonella, when treated with the caecum bacteria, were far less likely to develop symptoms of infection than those not given the treatment.
The small minority that did fall ill recovered more quickly than those not given the bacteria, and overall were more likely to continue putting on weight. A comprehensive victory for caecum bugs but also for the natural approach.
H.pylori, which causes gastric ulcers and is a known cancer agent, is fast developing antibiotic resistance, yet antibiotics are the main cure. What to do?
H.pylori bacteria cause ulcers by swimming in a spiral movement, which allows them to burrow into the stomach wall and cause an inflammatory reaction that gets out of hand.
APC's non-antibiotic solution is to stop them swimming and to use a probiotic, lactobacillus salivarius, an anti-inflammatory bacteria, to compete with H.pylori in the stomach.
The experiments are at an early stage but the objective is one that any advocate of alternative or naturopathic approaches would salute. The discoveries sit easily with the more traditional idea that foodstuffs and a "natural" approach to health and medicine have validity even in an age dominated by science; indeed, that there is no necessary antipathy between a naturalistic and scientific view of health.
The lessons, according to Prof Shanahan, though are that natural approaches to cure do work but need a scientific basis. But perhaps the real lesson is that the dialogue between the scientific community and that engaged with naturopathic medicine is closer that either is yet prepared to admit.