Tomato juice can kill the superbug salmonella, a new study has revealed.
It isn’t the one that causes common food poisoning however, but the more deadly strain behind typhoid fever, which can also be spread by poo and oral sex.
Researchers from Cornell University in New York have shown that tomato juice also kills other bacteria that can harm people’s digestive and urinary tract health.
Salmonella Typhi is a human-specific pathogen – an organism that causes disease – in this case, typhoid fever.
Symptoms of the potentially life-threatening illness include a high temperature, stomach pain, constipation or diarrhoea. If not treated quickly, the bacteria can move from the digestive system to the bloodstream and spread to other areas of the body, potentially leading to internal bleeding or even the bowel splitting open.
It is generally spread by contaminated water, or food washed in contaminated water, but can also be spread by poor hygiene after going to the toilet, contaminated milk and having oral sex with someone who is a carrier.
Cases in the UK remain rare, but increased last year after Covid restrictions lifted, allowing people to travel to regions where it is more common, including South Asia.
Now however, scientists have come up with a novel treatment in tomato juice.
The team found antimicrobial peptides in the juice, tiny proteins that basically spear and kill bacteria.
Their results, published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum, also went on to show firstly the peptides’ ability to kill variants of the bacteria where it was most common.
They then looked at how effective tomato juice was on killing both Salmonella and other pathogens that can hurt people’s digestive and urinary tract health.
The team discovered that tomato juice kills both Salmonella Typhi and its variants, as well as other bacteria that can harm people’s digestive and urinary tract health.
Associate Professor Dr Jeongmin Song, from Cornell, said: ‘Our main goal in this study was to find out if tomato and tomato juice can kill enteric pathogens [those in the digestive tract], including Salmonella Typhi, and if so, what qualities they have that make them work.
‘Our research shows that tomato and tomato juice can get rid of enteric bacteria like Salmonella.’
The researchers said they hope that when the public learns about the outcome of the study, they will want to eat and drink more tomatoes as well as other fruits and vegetables.
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