Scientists finds antimalarial benefits to home-made broths


19 Nov 2019

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While clinical trials have yet to pinpoint the active antimalarial ingredient in common broths, researchers are heralding a great discovery.

The answer to tackling the worldwide scourge of malaria could lie in the humble bowl of soup, scientists have said. For hundreds of years, a home-made bowl of nourishing broth has been used to fuel people battling the effects of flu and fever.

Now, UK scientists have shown that some traditional vegetable and meat broths can prove more than a match for one of the deadliest malarial parasites in the world. They were shown to interrupt the life cycle of Plasmodium falciparum, which causes 99pc of deaths from malaria and is transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito.

Half the world’s population is vulnerable to malaria, and resistance to the drugs used to treat it continues to emerge. The researchers were prompted to investigate whether there were any further natural remedies after the discovery of the antimalarial artemesin, which originates from qinghao, used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine to treat fever.

They asked pupils from Eden Primary School in London to bring in samples of home-made soups made using family recipes passed down through generations. The children’s ethnic backgrounds ranged from across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

They incubated extracts from 56 broths for three days with different cultures of Plasmodium falciparum to see if any could stop the growth of the sexually immature parasites. They also assessed whether the samples could block sexual maturation – the stage at which the parasite can infect the mosquito.

Many samples were found to increase the rate of parasite growth. But five of the broths curbed growth by more than 50pc, with two of them as effective as a leading antimalarial drug, dihydroartemisinin.

Four others were more than 50pc effective at blocking sexual maturation, so potentially stopping malarial transmission.

Educational exercise

The authors, from Imperial College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: “This journey, mirroring that of artemisinin from the qinghao herb, may as yet reveal another source of potent anti-infective treatment.”

The recipes of the vegetarian, chicken and beef-based broths varied, and no particular ingredient was common to those that demonstrated the strongest antimalarial activity. The active ingredients in the broths studied are yet to be identified and tested in clinical trials, the researchers warned.

They said it was a successful exercise in teaching children about the relationships between natural remedies, traditional medicine and evidence-based drug discovery.

They added: “At a time when there is a resurgent voice against evidence-based medicine, such exercises have great importance for educating the next generation about how new drugs are discovered, how they might work and how untapped resources still exist in the fight against global diseases of significance.”

The findings are published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

– PA Media