Tequila for your Colon?

Filed in archive Digestive Health on March 31, 2007

Various drugs, enemas and suppositories exist for the treatment of problems with the colon, including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. It seems something new is on the horizon.

An article in Endonurse reports:

Compounds derived from the blue agave, a fruit used to make tequila, shows promise in early laboratory studies as a natural, more effective way to deliver drugs to the colon than conventional drug-carriers, according to chemists at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. The development could lead to improved treatments for ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), cancer, Crohn's disease and other colon diseases, they say.

Wikipedia says of the blue agave:

The tequila agave grows natively in Jalisco, favoring the high altitudes (over 1500 meters) and sandy soil.

Tequila is produced by removing the heart of the plant in its twelfth year, normally weighing between 35-90 kg. This heart is stripped of leaves and heated to remove the sap, which is fermented and distilled.

This isn't a licence to go off on a tequila binge. Hopefully, the colon treatment will be made from the distilled sap, minus the alcoholic content.