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The unpleasant mucus might prove useful in treating IBD, Ulcerative Colitis And Crohn’s disease, a new study has found.

Mucus also helps the body in maintaining its equilibrium, prevent inflammation and reduce food allergy problems up to an extent.

Study was conducted at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Immunology Institute. Researchers find mucus so useful that they expect its production at mass level in near future and to be distributed among those who need it.

“We asked ourselves whether dendritic cells in the gut could capture mucus, as well as bacteria and food antigens,” said Andrea Cerutti, MD, PhD, the study’s senior author and Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine.

“We found that whenever mucus was present, it was stimulating the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines [regulatory proteins released by the cells of the immune system that act to regulate an immune response,” he also added.

For the very first time it has been found that mucus in the large intestine provides a valuable anti-inflammatory and self-regulating immune function.

“This important property of mucus was unknown until now,” said Meimei Shan, MD, PhD, the study’s lead author, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Immunology Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Under normal circumstances, people release about one liter of mucus everyday. Researchers believe that mucus is secreted by mucosal tissues throughout the body.

“Future research will focus on further exploring the mechanisms to synthesize gut mucus or an equivalent drug-like compound for oral administration,” said Dr. Shan. “We hope to artificially synthesize mucus or an equivalent compound for oral use.”

The research on mucus is funded by the National Institutes of Health.