A recent study shows that beach sand contains pathogens (bacteria) that pose a risk to adults and children and can cause illness and disease, such as skin infections and gastrointestinal (GI) disorders.

The U.S.’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has formulated guidelines that determine when the pathogen levels are high enough to be dangerous for swimmers in both fresh water and sea water, but has not done so for recreational beaches. Researchers at the University of Miami and Northern Illinois University are beginning to rectify this by producing their own guidelines.

As the EPA monitored water containing fecal indicator fecal bacteria (FIB), so did the researchers because it poses as a large threat to humans (diseases such as E. coli are caused by feces-contaminated water). FIB comes from direct sewage spills and from dog and bird feces and would indicate the presence of pathogens of multiple virus strains.

“Infectious risks vary in different microorganism,” Tomoyuki Shibata tells the University of Miami. Shibata is the assistant professor in the Public Health Program and Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability, & Energy at Northern Illinois University.

The researchers focused on studying sand from recreational beaches (mostly in Florida and California) because it would pose the most amount of threat to people.

In four steps, using reference pathogen guidelines from the EPA, the researchers essentially produced mathematical models, and computer simulations and measurements – per each gram of sand – of the disease-inducing pathogens to determine if the level of pathogens in the beach sand would go over the EPA’s guidelines. It turned out that it did. One fingertip dipped in the sand and inserted in the mouth contains enough FIB to cause GI. According to the researchers’ report, 19 out of 1000 beachgoers would be infected with GI.

Children would especially be susceptible to the pathogens and to becoming ill because they expose themselves to the sand more than adults.

“Parents of young children don’t need to overreact to our findings,” Shibata asserts. “They can reduce their child’s infectious risk by basic hygiene practices such as hand washing before eating or drinking and taking a shower.”

The report has been published in the American Chemical Society’s journal “Environmental Science and Technology,” and was written by Shibata and by Helena M. Solo-Gabriele, who is and the principal investigator of the study and a professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the UM College of Engineering.

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Adam Linstedt and Somshuvra Mukhopadhyay, biology researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have discovered that manganese – a common, inexpensive mineral – can prevent and neutralize the effects of the deadliest strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli). According to Linstedt, this is a “classic example of serendipity in science.”

E. coli, composed of bad bacteria, is found in feces, which spreads by contaminating food and water. The mostly deadly strain contains a toxin called the Shiga toxin, which attacks cells individually. Cells contain endosomes, which test foreign substances and direct the undesirable ones to the lysosome, the cell’s waste disposal unit.

The Shiga toxin attacks and destroys cells individually by hijacking the protein (GPP130), which cyclically travels to various parts of the cell and drops off molecules at their respective destinations. The toxin then makes the GPP130 maneuver away from the lysosome, avoiding its destruction. Ultimately, the Shiga toxin halts the cell’s process to create protein, consequently killing the cell.

This strain of E. coli causes lethal infections, which lead to dysentery, severe diarrhea, kidney failure, anemia, and so on. Last year, 3,700 people were infected with E. coli, and 45 were killed in western Europe.

The idea of manganese being the cure began with Don Smith, a toxicologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Performing an experiment to study manganese toxicity in cells, he found out that the mineral easily affects GPP130. When Linstedt and Mukhopadhyay learned of Smith’s findings, they took the experiment further.

Using mice as test subjects and their knowledge of how the Shiga toxin infiltrates the cell, Linstedt and Mukhopadhyay experimented to see if manganese had any effect on hijacked GPP130. They learned that manganese directs GPP130 on track to the lysosome, getting rid of the Shiga toxin and neutralizing any present effects as well.

“If we weren’t focused on answering fundamental biological questions, we wouldn’t have made this discovery,” Linstedt says in the Carnegie Mellon University press release.

He and Mukhopadhyay believe that manganese can be taken along with antibiotics to form a perfect combination to completely take out E. coli. When current antibiotics kill the E. coli bacteria, the Shiga toxin is released in much larger amounts. However, this unfortunate response can be counteracted with manganese, which blocks the toxin.

“An inexpensive, accessible treatment — not a designer drug — is the ideal solution,” Linstedt says. “We know the toxicity levels of manganese in humans; we know ways to administer it. While further testing is needed to determine if manganese is a suitable treatment for humans, I’m optimistic that trials should move forward quickly.”

In addition to being a supplement in vitamins, manganese can be found in many foods: nuts, kale, strawberries, spinach, garlic, grapes, brown rice, and spices, such as thyme and tumeric.

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Authorities are still struggle to find the source of the infected vegetables while more people are getting sick. German scientists remain baffled over the origin of the particular strain of E. Coli bacteria currently being registered because of its particularly vicious symptoms. Normally, young children and elderly people are most vulnerable to the bacteria but the recent outbreak has hit predominantly young adult females – and the scientists don’t know why.

A new report by Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) for University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf has determined that the bacteria is a completely new and extremely infectious strain of E. Coli with no previously recorded outbreaks. However, there is a 93% convergence between the current European bacteria and the one that caused severe diarrhea in the Central African Republic according to Berlingske Tidende, a Danish Daily.

The research also suggest that the strain is difficult to treat with antibiotics but the team behind the report are still working on tangible ways of effectively treat the victims and stop the spread of the bacteria. Meanwhile, doctors and researchers are forced to conduct basic scientific detective work, which according to the BBC amounts to “simply asking all the surviving victims what they ate and when they ate it, and them comparing notes to find a pattern.”

Seventeen people have died so far, counting 16 Germans and a Swedish woman. Almost 370 new cases were reported Wednesday including two in the US who had returned from a trip to Hamburg, Germany. The northern city seems to be the capital of the outbreak.

German authorities have had to withdraw the claim that infected vegetables came from Spain after the suspected farmers have been cleared. They are now saying it could take months before the outbreak is under control because tracking down the real source will be close to impossible. “We may never know” said Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Kock Institute to the BBC.

The allegation that the infected vegetables originated in Spain has hit their national export hard and loss of earnings is estimated at more than €200M per week for affected farmers. The Spanish government have stated they will seek compensation for Germany’s wrong accusations.

Meanwhile, Russia has banned the import of all fresh vegetables from the European Union as a result of E. Coli (EHEC) risk – a move which the EU has called “disproportionate.” According to European Commission spokesman Frediric Vincent, the Union will be lodging a protest. The BBC Moscow correspondent Daniel Sandford informs that Russia is the single biggest export market for European farmers which makes the ban detrimental. However, the head of Russia’s consumer protection agency Gennady Onishchenko has criticized the EU for their food safety standards, arguing that their “lauded health legislation” is ineffective.

Financially, a country which have been tainted with suspicion – such as Spain – could face a complete trade collapse. A professor in Psychology at the University of Copenhagen told Berlingske Tidende that “cucumber hysteria” could haunt consumers and sales for a long time – in many cases without real cause for concern.

Cases of infection have been reported in a total of nine European countries but virtually all the sick people either lived or recently travelled in Germany.

Why young women are most vulnerable to the outbreak, which has caused serious infections, diarrhea and affected blood, kidneys and the central nervous system, is still a mystery. One theory was that victims were more likely to choose healthier food options but the inclination of young females to eat salads was soon dismissed as too weak an explanation. Dr Ulf Goebel of the Charity university hospital in Berlin, Germany has argued that the bacterial strain might be genetically more ‘suitable’ for women in the same way other viruses are linked to ethnicity. However, Dr Dylis Morgan from the British Health Protection Agency has added: “It’s very unusual for adults to have Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome [an otherwise unusual complication of E. Coli]” but not for the victims of the recent outbreak.

The number of infected victims has officially passed 1500 across Europe.

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