However, experts warn that many forms of terrestrial and marine life that have an economic interest and medical could disappear before we can know the secrets and sometimes even before you even know they exist.
These frogs were incubate their eggs in their own stomach. In all other animals they would have been digested by enzymes and acids.
Preliminary studies have shown that babies frogs produce a substance, or perhaps several, which inhibit the secretion of acids and enzymes and prevented the mother of his empty stomach in the intestines while the young grew. The authors emphasize that research on frogs incubation gastric could have facilitated the prevention and treatment of peptic ulcer disease, which affects nearly 25 million people, alone USA. "But these studies could not be prosecuted because the two species Rheobatrachus have disappeared, taking with them forever their important secrets, so useful for medicine" said Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, the main authors of the book, which work at Health Centre . "We are currently in the process of destroying the 'hard drive' nature? And at an extraordinary pace and without any hope of restoring the data once lost. We must understand the magnitude of the destruction that we do to ourselves to change direction. In order to curb the destruction of biodiversity by 2010 and change the trend, we must finally take effective measures at international level. That is our goal for the forthcoming 9th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn. "
"Sustaining Life," the work of more than 100 experts published by the University of Oxford, was funded by UNEP, the CBD Secretariat, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). At the heart of this book, a chapter is devoted to the study of seven groups of organisms that have threatened a general interest in medicine. These amphibians, bears, conidaes, sharks, primates, and limules gymnosperms, which highlight what cost the extinction of species to human health.
 These disappearances involve promising prospects for medical research and new treatments, pharmaceuticals and diagnostic tests.
The experts, including authors emphasize that the conclusions of this book is not a free rein to exploitation of wildlife that would put even more pressure on species already threatened, vulnerable and fragile.
Six species of bears are threatened with extinction, including polar bears, the giant panda and the Asiatic black bear.
The bears are threatened by the same dangers as amphibians, but they are also hunted for their organs as the bladder, which can reach high prices on the black market in China, Japan and Thailand.
The research on bears has led several medical discoveries, including the transformation of ursodeoxycholic acid, found in the gallbladder of certain species of bears as polar bears and black bears in medicine.
This substance is used to prevent the secretion of bile during pregnancy. It helps to dissolve certain types of gallstones and can prolong the lives of patients with liver disease, primary biliary cirrhosis, leaving more time for a liver transplant.
Some species of bears, called "hibernant" because they can enter a state of deep sleep when food is scarce, have great value for medicine because they are able to recycle more substances and equipment.
Unlike humans, who can not stay in bed for five months without losing up to one third of their bone mass, bears regenerate bone during hibernation. The bear appears to produce a substance that inhibits the cells that weaken bones and produces substances that promote the production of cartilage and bone cells. Currently, hip fractures cause 740 000 deaths per year, mostly due to osteoporosis. By 2050 an estimated six million the number of hip fractures related to osteoporosis.
When it hibernate, a bear can survive for five months or more without evacuating its excrement while the surplus of these toxic substances would kill a human within a few days only. In the world, approximately 1.5 million people are treated for kidney disease at the terminal and over 80 000 people die each year alone USA. By studying hibernation bears could understand how best to treat these people and allow a large number of them to survive.
The study of hibernation we would perhaps also to find ways to treat diabetes, Type I and II and obesity. There are 150 to 200 million cases of type II diabetes in the world. |
