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?
there are some antibiotics in Alligator blood that are promising as well. I think I would prefer gator blood to cockroach brains, but whatever works I guess.
haha, I’m gonna have to agree with you, the alligator blood does seem like the better deal. But when this research is complete it would of been processed into a pharmaceutical. This will make it as easy as popping a pill and we’d never know it was cockroach brains.
Just like the old saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you”…lol
Although it’s a new discovering, it’s still make me creep when they touch my skin … 🙁
But still, we can’t deny this great discovering for medical needs. Let’s just wait for the researches … 🙂
Yah, I’m actually excited to see how this turns out. I guess considering the fact that a lot of medicine breakthroughs were derived from dirt and some other unsavory places, cockroach brains won’t be that far off. 🙂
interesting to know that cockroaches too may be beneficial….
I have always found them disgusting only!
yah Yegesh it’s quite hard to imagine that creatures so filthy and disgusting could potentially hold treatment for extremely harmful bacterias.
But this will definitely change the world of medicine as we know it.
Penicillin started out in a similar manner. I’m all for doing whatever works, weird or not.
Good point Michael. All medical breakthroughs have to start somewhere and if it can help mankind then I’m all for it too.
This is marvelous invention I must say. You have a great vision I must say.
Thanks Nikhil, many people often wonder what the true purpose of insects on this Earth is. Maybe this helps explain one intended purpose for these creatures. As the universe shows, there’s a place for everything, and everything in it’s place. 🙂
Nice Post , we must respect Cockroaches ,
I enjoyed this post so keep up the good work.
very nice post..i love it very much and recommend to my friends..thanks
Yah it’s actually pretty ironic that we’ve fought with cockroaches for millions of years, and only until recently has a practical purpose been discovered for them. Best wishes and thanks for dropping by.
Not surprised, those things can survive radiation of nuclear combustion chambers.
They are tough little boogers Schooble, these natural antibiotics that have been found in their brains is the reason they can survive almost anything that would be devastating to us humans. It’s about time we took advantage of a little they have to offer don’t ya think?
oh wow! great information.
good to know that cockroaches are also benificial 😛
I hear ya, in a million years I never would of imagined that cockroaches would someday heal the sick. Medical advances are so amazing.
ohhh……your blog is discovering the new info about the cockroaches. From my point of view cockroaches only uses for scaring people just now i come to know about their antibiotic and they really beneficial.
I thought it was some pretty important information in scientific research, so I felt I should share it with you all. Thanks for stopping by.
Maybe WE’ll be the last species left on earth! we won’t run out of a steady supply if we can’t synthesize these ourselves…
You know Martin, considering human’s determination to survive, it wouldn’t surprise me if we were the last here on Earth. But we do need most of the resources that our planet has to offer in order to sustain that life.