Many of you are probably familiar with one of my older posts called Cockroaches, Can’t Live with Them and Can’t Get Rid of Them that I published back in January. In that post we talked about how a home may become infested with cockroaches and how nasty they can become to your environment. We also covered a few tips on things you can do to prevent them from moving in and overrunning your space.
But this post is a bit different, we’re actually going to talk about some good points to cockroaches. I was doing a little research, as usual, and ran across some very interesting information regarding these night raiders and felt I needed to share it with my readers.
It appears that cockroaches may be carriers of a new antibiotic that has the ability to kill certain bacteria that is often deadly to humans. So let’s go over some of the details about this antibiotic and enlighten ourselves with some new interesting information.
How Cockroaches May Help Fight Infection
According to scientific research conducted by Simon Lee of the University of Nottingham in the U.K., American Cockroaches may be a marvel to modern medicine. Apparently the central nervous system of the American Cockroach has the ability to produce natural antibiotics. These antibiotics may be a key ingredient in fighting off bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), as well as toxic strains of Escherichia coli. Both of which are quite deadly to humans, so this would be a major breakthrough.
So far they’ve tested two separate species of locusts and it’s been discovered that they carry this amazing antibiotic as well. In fact research suggests that there may be many, many more insect species that could potentially carry these new antibiotics.
This would be a modern marvel since scientists have been struggling to fight against several strains of infectious diseases, including the ones listed above, MRSA and E. coli. Since these two particular strains are immune to traditional antibiotics, this discovery is very exciting.
Is it possible that we’ve finally found the true purpose for all these insects that inhabit the earth. Just for a little brain teaser think about this statistic, insects make up roughly 80% of all the animals on Earth! That’s amazing, just think of all the possibilities and diseases we may be able to cure by tapping into this gigantic resource of undiscovered medicine.
It’s a good thing they’ve found this out because all the traditional sources for discovering new antibiotics such as soil microbes, fungi and synthetics have been exhausted.
Are Cockroaches Really a Good Source for Antibiotics
I know what most of you are thinking, especially if you’ve read any of my other posts talking about how nasty these creatures are. You’re probably thinking, wouldn’t using parts of these cockroaches make us even sicker, or is it really safe to use cockroaches for antibiotics.
Well just think about this for a second. Cockroaches and other insects live in the dirtiest of places, they scavenge on some pretty nasty stuff while feeding and have been known to carry diseases. Well this is true, but, did you ever think about how the cockroaches themselves are able to fight off all these diseases and bacteria that they come into contact with everyday? Well, the scientists did think about this and they did come up with an answer.
According to the scientific testing that has been done on the American Cockroaches brains, it was discovered that each of the nine types of antibacterial molecules are capable of fighting a different type of bacteria. This definitely explains how the cockroaches themselves are able to combat so many different bacteria without dying from it.
After thoroughly testing all parts of the cockroaches they’ve discovered that the brain tissue is the only part of the bugs that contain these antibiotics. Therefore if the cockroaches were to damage a limb or wing, they would be able to survive, but if they were to get an infection within the brain tissue itself, then they would most certainly die.
Keep in mind this research is all pretty new so it’s doubtful that we will see a bottle of cockroaches in the drug store any time soon. But within a few years time this could possibly be ready for human use and would certainly impact medicine as we know it. And if you were wondering, they did test the cockroaches antibiotics against human cells in the lab environment, and it went extremely well with no toxic effects what so ever.
What say you? Do you think this is a marvelous discovery, or something of a waste of time?
I think it’s pretty cool.
I read, some years ago, that cockroaches can withstand 500 times the radiation humans can. I can attest that they’ve been known to survive up to 30 seconds in a microwave on high… (don’t ask – seriously, just trust me that it wasn’t QUITE as sadistic as it sounds, but every bit as disgusting).
I know people who are absolutely terrified of cockroaches; I’m not, because they don’t bite and have no venom. Everything carries germs, so… whatever. But I will exploit these folks’ weakness and make them swear to stomp on my spiders without laughing as I climb on their heads, shrieking.
Robert, I must tell you that my checking the little box does not prove I’m not an Alien. I may be a sentient Alien. I may now be after your brain, to keep you from talking. Or not.
BTW, I hope I didn’t offend you with my comment over on my blog – I hadn’t even noticed your in-context text ads till now. Oooops. (It does appear that you constrain them to your own content, for which I thank you from the bottom of my heart.)
Heya Holly… I’ve heard that about the radiation as well, scary thought isn’t it, that the world would be dominated by nothing but cockroaches in the event of a nuclear incident.
I find your comment about the microwave not sadistic at all, but more interesting, sounds like an experiment I would try out myself, in the name of science of course. 🙂
Oh no, the comment about the contextual ad links didn’t offend at all. It’s all a means to an end, or a means to a continuance that is. Everyone has to pay the bills somehow, and although I make plenty of money from my employer to pay my blogs expenses, I still like it to sustain itself if possible. I’m far from making enough money for a Vegas Vacation, but between domain fees, hosting and CDN fees, it does help out. To each their own in relation to that one. But I try to keep any advertisements low key so not to disturb my readers experience. I only hope I’ve been successful in doing that.
as then can tolerate high doses of radiation, i wonder, someday real good working anti-radiation med would come as well..!! Maybe we would be gain more tolerance against radiation since various kinds of radiation is increasing like every year!
Well, even though this is a bit off subject from the original post I would still like to comment on this…
As far as I know, there are some radiation preventative medications that are taken by certain workers to ensure their chances of being effected by radiation are lowered. Such as Astronauts and possibly field workers that deal with such things. But I’m sure it is nothing that is publicly available at this time.
Not sure if this is what you meant, but thank you for dropping by.
The best are natural antibiotics!. The antibiotic is, for example, allicin in garlic or onion sulfur compounds present in cranberry and hippuric acid is effective in the urinary tract infections of E. coli. Similar effects have also many herbs, such as thyme, sage, eucalyptus and aloe vera, and essential oils of pine, spruce or juniper. Natural antibiotics in the form of volatile oils destroy streptococci and staphylococci. They are used typically for inhalation and washing.
Indeed Wentylacja I believe any natural antibiotic or remedy is certainly better than man made medicines. But there are some things that nature simply can not treat that is when we have to rely on the invention of man. Thanks a bunch for stopping by and leaving a valuable comment.
this is what i like to read something new happened in this world nice informative post ..
Cockroaches. It would be really weird and kind of gross using an antibiotic produced by cockroaches for humans. Though I love how you compile odd stuffs here in your blog, really interesting.
I agree Catherine that it’s not the best sounding remedy. Seems so strange that anything beneficial could come from something so nasty.
Here in our country, some people fry and eat cockroaches because they believe it has medicinal benefits. *Just thinking of it makes me want to throw up. X(
Yah that doesn’t sound very appetizing Jeff. Even though there are some medicinal properties in a cockroaches brain, I still don’t think I’d be frying them up for dinner! lol
I am greatly surprised to know about the Alligator.I feel proud to be a reader of your blog post regularly. I really love reading your blog, it’s really informative and you always something helpful to share with us. I really appreciate it.Please keep it up with positive way.
Yah that’s a new one to me as well, I wasn’t aware the alligator had similar properties.
On another note, thanks a bunch for being a dedicated reader, I will do my best to keep your interests peaked.
Interesting research! After a recent holiday and in infestation of these lovely little critters I’m not surprised to hear they can fight off so many different types of bacteria! They are certainly resilient little creatures and I am sure they will be the last creatures standing in an apocalypse!
Yep as scary as it sounds, you’re probably right. When nothing else is left standing, those nasty creatures will still be thriving. I’m very sad to hear about your vacation turning into a battle with the cockroaches. I’m definitely hoping y’all were on the trophy end of that war though!
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