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Incredible Uses of Venom! Cancer Cures!! Venom can be deadly. This should come as no surprise to literally anyone. What may be surprising, however, is the amount of positive uses there are for the venom! While the bite of a snake or the sting of a bee may not be helpful to humanity on its own, scientists have spent decades studying the chemicals in these poisons and have come to some surprising discoveries.
From pain helpers to Blood Pressure medicine…stay tuned to number one to find out WHICH venom is being used to help treat cancer!
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
Venom can be deadly.
This should come as no surprise to literally anyone.
What may be surprising, however, is the amount of positive uses there are for the venom!
While the bite of a snake or the sting of a bee may not be helpful to humanity on its
own, scientists have spent decades studying the chemicals in these poisons and have come
to some surprising discoveries.
From Painkillers to Blood Pressure medicine…stay tuned to number one to find out WHICH venom
is being used to help treat cancer!
Number 10: Making Anti-venom.
Okay, this one may be a bit obvious, but the best way to make an antidote for venom is
to use venom itself.
When someone is bit by a snake, their body reacts to the chemical that just entered the
bloodstream, and they react badly.
However, scientists have found ways to extract the venom from snakes, spiders and many other
creepy crawlers to create anti venom that can quickly treat someone who has been bitten
or stung.
The process of collecting the venom is interesting, too.
Scientists have to basically grab the snake and force it to bite into something, essentially
“milking” it of its venom.
The same goes for obtaining venom from a spider or a bee or any number of other insects.
This may not be exactly what they signed up for with their chemistry major, but at least
they’re helping the world!
Number 9: Making Painkillers.
Surprisingly, for how painful it can be to be bitten or stung, scientists have found
ways to use venom, itself, to create painkillers of all kinds.
So…how does THIS work?
Especially since a bite from a snake or spider is painful?
As it turns out, it’s not about the bite as much as it is about controlling the amount
of venom that enters the body.
Particularly with spider venom, it causes pain that travels through the central nervous
system to tell you that you have been bit.
The problem is, a lot of venom tells your body to become paralyzed and shut down the
body’s essential functions, which could lead to death.
However, if a smaller amount of this venom is applied to a pained area of a patient,
the nervous system can “lightly” paralyze the pained area, allowing for relief.
This doesn’t mean that we’ll soon be prescribed a spider bite from our doctor, but it does
mean we could be relieved of our pain through a controlled dose of spider venom.
Number 8: Reduce Blood Pressure.
All these images of bugs and snakes probably have your blood boiling, so now would be a
good time to mention how venom can actually help you control your blood pressure.
Since the 1970’s, doctors and scientists have been studying the proteins of viper venom.
At that time, they discovered that it has a protein that disrupts the human body’s angiotensin-converting
enzyme, or ACE.
Disrupting the ACE is one of the most powerful ways they have found to reduce blood pressure
in humans.
ACE inhibitor treatments have now become a standard in the world of blood pressure reduction.
See, even if these creepy crawlies are ugly as hell and scary to look at, they can help
reduce your blood pressure after all.
Trust me!
Number 7: Light Up The Brain It may not seem to useful, in fact it may
seem downright pointless, but scientists have been able to use venom to light up brain cells.
This may not seem like a good use of anyone’s time and money, but there is really a good
use here.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis have used tarantula venom to study its
effects on the electrical charges that occur in and around cells.
As it turns out, the venom from these fur balls offers a chemical that can make cells
light up when a potassium channel is opened or closed.
Honestly, I don’t really know what that means, but, while there is no conclusive evidence
yet, scientists believe that this venom’s control of lighting up cells can help fight
electrical issues within the brain, such as epilepsy.
If the venom is used in the right way and at the right dose, people with epilepsy and
other similar disorders can find relief and maybe eventually a cure.
That’s a pretty good use of deadly venom from a seemingly useless monster bug.
Number 6: Treat Cancer.
The world needs cancer treatments.
A lot of them.
Unfortunately, it’s such a unique illness that it is hard to pinpoint the exact way
to best treat it.
Fortunately…and I actually mean this…we have rattlesnake venom.
Rattlesnake venom has a chemical named crotoxin.
This chemical is known to attack and kill cells.
Now, normally, this is a bad thing, but when someone has cancer and a tumor that needs
to be reduced, crotoxin is a perfect solution.
Use the venom to target specifically the cancerous cells in the tumor, and you have a viable
treatment for controlling the growth of a cancer.
Granted, a snake bite will not take away cancer, but it is good to know that these little slithering
poison bags have something useful in their bite.
Number 5: Treat Muscular Dystrophy.
If there is any other disease tougher to fight than cancer, it would be muscular dystrophy.
MD refers to a wide array of diseases that attack muscle tissue in the body, leaving
a person weak and unable to function normally.
On the plus side, even Muscular Dystrophy sufferers can benefit from spider venom.
Scientists from the University of Buffalo have been studying spider venom for many years.
Recently, they discovered certain chemicals within the spider venom that could help slow
down the destruction of muscle tissue.
This could be useful for anyone who has a temporary illness that is eating away at muscle,
or someone with a more serious disease such as Muscular Dystrophy.
While the chemicals have not been proven to repair muscle tissue, it looks hopeful as
a treatment to slow down the process of deterioration, which is a massive stride forward.
Number 4: Central Nervous System Disorders.
The central nervous system is a very delicate system that can be shaken by many things,
including physical trauma, a disease, or even the venom of a bug or snake.
That makes this next statement even more confusing: the venom from a deadly black mamba snake
can help fight central nervous systems disorders.
It’s true.
Scientists have been studying venom from all over the world for many years, and one of
the deadliest out there is from Africa’s Black Mamba.
A few drops of this venom can quickly kill a victim because the chemicals bind themselves
so tightly to the cells within the body, especially nerve cells.
This is why scientists want to study it so closely.
If they can figure out how the venom attaches itself to the cells, they can have a better
understanding of how to help the cells fight it off.
The venom of the Black Mamba, which can kill a victim in a matter of minutes, may very
well be the tool needed to help repair the central nervous system.
That seems really odd, but if they are right, this could lead to cures for diseases like
Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
WOW!
The Black Mamba seems a little cooler that it did before.
Number 3: Kill Parasites.
Parasites are never a good thing.
Just the name brings up bad thoughts.
So it’s a good thing that snake venom has been found to be a great tool in the never-ending
fight against parasites.
Venom from the Prairie Rattlesnake has a chemical in it called crovirin.
This chemical has been studied for many years and has been found to be useful in battling
protozoan parasites that cause many kinds of deadly diseases.
This is great news, especially for countries in Africa that suffer from Chagas disease
and Leishmaniasis more than anywhere else in the world.
These diseases kill tens of thousands of people annually, and crovirin can help cure them.
And it all comes from the venom of a rattlesnake.
So the next time you see a rattlesnake…stay away from it!
But also remember that he’s not as useless to the world as you may have thought before.
Number 2: Detect Explosives.
While these venomous monsters may be able to help us with all kinds of diseases, they
also have the ability to help us with entirely different problems.
One of those ways is by detecting explosive devices.
Bee venom (also known as the poison that makes a bee sting suck so bad), features a peptide
chemical that can help detect explosives.
Researchers have coated paper with this peptide, then exposed the paper to explosive materials,
and the color has changed.
This means that security teams around the world can simply wave a bee venom peptide-laced
cloth over a surface, detect explosive material, and catch someone with a bomb in their bag.
This seems like a really odd use for bee venom, but if it can help us detect a bomb before
it is used, then what’s not to love?
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Number 1: Making Batteries.
You heard that right: making batteries.
It is possible to use the venomous liquid from certain ants to power up your devices.
Well, sorta.
Batteries are filled with ionic liquids that create an electrical current and power everything
we own, from computers to cell phones to clocks and even our cars.
However, researchers have long believed that ionic liquids only exist in the lab, made
from a mix of chemicals put together by man, without being a natural element.
As it turns out, they were wrong.
Scientists studying two types of ants managed to find ionic liquid in their venom.
When a group of fire ants and a group of crazy ants (yes, that’s their name) battle it out
for territory, their venom blends and produces an ionic liquid that can be collected and
used for creating batteries.
We can literally charge our phone through the power of ant venom.
Well, at least that unkillable ant hill in your backyard is useful for something.
Tell us what you think about these uses for venom in the comments below, and take care!
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This post was previously published on YouTube.