Pineapple may be an antibiotic alternative

I remember my Mother often cutting up pineapple and giving it to us kids before a meal. She believes that it stimulates appetite and helps digestion. We just ate it because it was yummy.

So I was really interested to see that research being done at La Trobe University is showing that pineapple may help with the increasing demand for alternatives to antibiotics.

The majority of antibiotics in Australia are not used in humans, but in animals. The antibiotics are added to animal feed as a preventative to maintain health and reduce the likelihood of illness or death.

Any animals or poultry which die before they are slaughtered reduces the  income of the farmer, so keeping them healthy is just good business senses.

This means however that the amount of antibioticsbeing used is massive and that reduces their effectiveness against bacteria, as they continue to build up immunity.

So all over the world, scientists are working frantically to find alternatives to antibiotics.

An extract from the stems of pineapples seems to stop gastro and diarrhoea in piglets.

Cutting edge DNA technology is being used by Professor Robert Pike in the research.

Professor Pike said; “We hope this will also open up new avenues for natural treatments of gastro in humans – and stop our strong reliance on antibiotics and the rise of superbugs.”