San Diego A folk remedy has been proven to relieve persistent diarrhoea in children, Bangladesh researchers report here at the annual Digestive Disease Week meeting. Although feeding children green bananas is a traditional antidiarrhoeal remedy in Bangladesh and neighboring countries, Dr. G. H. Rabbani and colleagues from the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh have scientifically proven its' effectiveness in a carefully designed clinical study. The researchers randomly assigned 62 infants who had diarrhoea for more than 14 days to a rice-based diet containing unripe, green banana, pectin or a placebo for seven days. Children with persistent diarrhoea have intestines that are too porous. We were able to show in our study that green bananas decrease intestinal porosity and that this is what leads to normalization of the stools,'' Rabbani explained.
Green bananas are an inexpensive and available food in most developing countries.
We are currently teaching mothers how to use this food as a home-based therapy for childhood diarrhoea,'' he said. Green bananas may soon be available as a nutraceutical, which would make this remedy easily accessible to mothers in developed as well as developing countries,'' Rabbani added. Nutraceuticals are processed foods bioengineered to have medicinal properties.