Pumpkin skin may scare away germs

I thought this short article was somewhat relevant since Halloween is this Saturday. [Or it would have been if I had posted this on time...mf]

Recently there was a new study by Kyung-Soo Hahm, Yoonkyung Park, and some other colleagues discovered the proteins (C. albicans) in the rinds in pumpkins can possibly be formed into a medicine to help cure with yeast infections in humans. These proteins were also found to block the growth of fungi that attack some important plant crops. It might be used as a future agricultural fungicide.

Although in the past there has been hints that pumpkins have been long used as folk medicine in a couple of countries, it wasn't until recently they put this fact to use to find an antibiotic for the millions of cases of yeast infections.

Posted by Jeremy Schwartz