A spoonful of sugar does the trick!
There will soon be no more bitter pills to swallow, thanks to new research by scientists at Leeds University in northern England.  A spoonful of sugar will be all we need for our bodies to make their own medicine.

Professor Simon Carding of Leeds' Faculty of  Biological Sciences has adapted a bacterium in our own bodies to make it produce a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease [IBD].  Bacteria and viruses have been used before to deliver drugs in this way, but Prof Carding has solved the major problem with this kind of treatment: he uses a sugar to 'switch' the bacterium on and off.  By consuming the sugar, a patient will set the medicine to work and then can end the treatment simply by stopping the intake of the sugar.

"Current bacteria and virus delivery systems produce their drugs non-stop, but for many treatments there is a narrow concentration range at which drugs are beneficial," said Prof Carding.

"Outside of this, the treatment can be counterproductive and make the condition worse.  It's vitally important to be able to control when and how much of  the drug is administered, and we believe our discovery will provide that control."

Prof Carding has modified one of the millions of  bacteria in the human gut so that it will produce human growth factors which help repair the layer of cells lining the colon, so reducing inflammation caused by IBD.  But he has also adapted the bacterium so that it only activates in the presence of a plant sugar, called xylan, that is found in tree bark.  Xylan is naturally present in food in low concentrations, so by taking it in higher quantities  patients will be able to produce their own medicine as and when they need it. "The human gut has a huge number of  bacteria, and this treatment simply adapts what is there naturally to treat the disease," he said.  "We're already looking at using the same technique for colorectal cancer, as we believe we could modify the bacterium to produce factors that will reduce tumour growth."