Imagine going to the doctor with a bad case of diarrhoea and being prescribed silkworm faeces because can sha (the Chinese name for the droppings) is a great anti-diarrhoeal agent that can stop vomiting and diarrhoea, expel wind, relieve abdominal pain and harmonise the stomach. Snake oil hocus-pocus or medical revolution?
There’s nothing new about using bugs like insects, worms, bees, centipedes and scorpions as medicine or for healing, whether using the creature itself, its produce or extracts. The Chinese have been doing so for over 5,000 years and the people of South America, Africa, India and Korea, among others, also record similar practices. Some of these traditions still continue to present day where respectable sinseh (traditional medicine practitioners) prescribe centipede powder and sea cockroach in modern medical halls.
Even modern medicine has dabbled in creepy crawlies. Many World War II soldiers owe their lives to blowfly maggots that eat dead tissue and kill bacteria, allowing wounds to heal faster.Confederate medical officer during America’s Civil War JF Zacharias was once reported as saying, "Maggots in a single day would clean a wound much better than any other agents we had at our command." Blood-sucking leeches are making a comeback in operating theatres too. They’re used especially for plastic and reconstructive surgery because they secrete an anticoagulant that fights blood clots and restores proper blood flow to inflamed parts of the body.
Origins of bugsas medicine
Bug pharmacology has been in existence probably as long as human history. The ancient Greeks used a paste made from flies to cure baldness and the ancient Egyptians dressed wounds with honey and used leeches to fix anything from headaches to blood disorders. During the Han Dynasty between 206BC and 220AD, the Shen Nong Ben Cao (Shen Nong’s pharmacopoeia classic), a manuscript on Chinese medicine compiled a list of 21 insects used as medicine.
Ancient pharmacopoeia records two principles for using bugs: The ingredients have to be repulsive and the insect has to bear some resemblance to the complaint or suffering. The idea came from the dogma similia similibus curentur, meaning ‘like cures like’. Hence the Chinese used a sticky secretion from spiders to make a balm for bone fractures and the Koreans ingested multi-legged centipedes to strengthen weak legs!
Put tothe test
With logic like that, can there be any truth to our ancestors’ choice of cure?
"The knowledge isn’t from thin air. Medical scholars from the past rigorously studied plants, animals, bugs and minerals, and test their medicinal properties to find the best uses. Yes, at times they followed the simple logic of the law of similarity but modern day laboratory research has confirmed much of what they had discovered," explains a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner at Yee Chou Acupuncture and Medical Centre in Petaling Jaya, Huang Sudan.
Take the case of ants. In China, a particular species of ant is used to make a tonic that’s supposed to boost the immune system and relieve arthritis in human beings. Scientific research is now recognising the efficacy behind the folk remedy as scientists in China discovered that the ants increase longevity in rats. Senior lecturer in Pharmacognosy at Middlesex University Dr John Wilkinson confirms, "These ants contain a lot of zinc, and zinc has been identified for some time as an immune stimulant and an antioxidant. This species of ant seem to react similarly to the immune system, just like ginseng and Vitamin E."
The large arsenal of potentially curative bug compounds is causing a stir of excitement in the medical and scientific community around the world. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia, for example, has set up a spin-off company to research the biological compounds of insects and find insect-derived pharmaceuticals. CEO of Australian research company Entocosm Pty Ltd Stephen Trowell says they hope to make insect-derived pharmaceuticals as well-known and commercially successful as plant-derived pharmaceuticals.
Dr Jean-Luq Dimarcq of Entomed SA, a French-based research firm that discovers and develops medicines derived from the biology and chemical diversity of insects, explains the reason for turning to bugs.
"Insects have powerful defence systems that have evolved over millions of years. Each insect species produces a distinctive set of functional molecules as part of their normal physiology. An insect’s immune molecules have been specifically designed and have evolved over half a billion years to
carry out their functions. Although insects don’t possess anything like the same range of different immune cells as humans, they have had 500 million years to fine-tune their immune responses. In comparison, our ancestors Homo Sapiens only arrived around 120,000 years ago."
Modern science, apparently, is finally catching up with ancient practices.
A little respect, please
The biggest problem isn’t the bugs but the indiscriminate way people use this remedy: Self-prescribing, consulting quacks and listening to hearsay. Like the case of a self-appointed healer in Cuba, Jose Felipe Monzon.Two years before conclusive research found that scorpion venom had promise in treating cancer, he treated cancer patients with a homemade tonic of scorpion venom and distilled water, which he claimed worked where chemotherapy and radiotherapy failed. Monzon’s untested concoction is precisely the kind of thing that gives bug drugs a bad name.
Huang says medicinal bugs are no different from other medication and shouldn’t be taken without a proper prescription. "Like any doctor, we prescribe medicine according to the sickness. So what you ingest, how it’s prepared, how it’s taken and at what dosage, all have an impact on the curing process. Simply taking something when you don’t have a condition can upset your internal system." Apart from that, he says the bugs themselves are not harmful. "In traditional Chinese medicine, almost every bug has medicinal use, even poisonous ones like scorpions as we believe, to fight poison you have to use poison." There’s the law of similarity at work again.
The future of bug drugs
Scientists are making rapid headway in identifying properties in bugs, isolating and producing the compounds responsible for beneficial properties. For example, Serrapeptase, an enzyme that is produced in the intestines of silkworms, has proven to be a superior alternative to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, chronic sinusitis and post-operative inflammation, among others. Another bug-derived enzyme, Lumbrokinase, is being used to treat chronic conditions associated with blood clotting disorder (hypercoagulability) and recommended by naturopath as support treatment for cancer patients. This substance comes from earthworm enzymes. Both Serrapeptase and Lumbrokinase are available as health supplements.
These are early days though but it hasn’t stopped pharmaceuticals from knocking on the doors of Entomed SAto take their compound library to the next stage, which is drug development; or a company like Unigen Pharmaceuticals, a natural ingredient supplier in the US, from patenting its insect-derived policosanol to produce products that manage blood lipids and associated health concerns.
Bugs, it’s safe to say, are the way forward.
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