Vampire Bats Might Aid Stroke Victims

Ginas writes "CNN is reporting the bite of a vampire bat may help stroke victims. According to the article a substance taken from bats' saliva contains a powerful clot buster and may be used up to three times longer than the current stroke treatment and without additional risk for brain damage side effects. Kind of makes you wonder how they stumbled on to this discovery."

What's to wonder?

[Drakin]

Really, what's to wonder, when you think about it. preventing the blood from clotting would be a good thing for a vampire bat, as they don't suck blood, they make a wound with their incisors and lap at the blood that flows from the wound.

The fact that the saliva from a vampire bat prevents blood from clotting is well known I beleive, likely first realised when a wounded animal's wound flowed for longer than normal. Just the notion of applying that knowedge in this manner is really new. though, if you think about it, it makes you wonder "why didn't they think of this sooner?"

Re:What's to wonder?

[msouth]

What makes you th9ink they didn't think of this sooner?

Re:repeat?

[skinfitz]

It's probably been sitting in the /. "Pending" list for 5 years...

Hmm...

[Koos Baster]

' Guess Coppola's Dracula movie [imdb.com] should be renamed to "Bram Stroker's Dracula".

--
Smoking kills; if you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life -- Brooke Shields

Help stroke victims...

[mdielmann]

...have better, more more long-lasting strokes? Sorry, couldn't resist ;)

Obvious dialogue

[Daniel Dvorkin]

"Doctor, I think I'm having a stroke!"

"Don't vorry ... ve can solf zis problem ... lie back, and tilt your head, like zo ... ah ..."

Okay, seriously. This is a really good thing. T-PA, as the article mentions, is a powerful lifesaving drug but is also really horrible stuff. IIRC from my ER days, we used to routinely push some other incredibly powerful drugs without a second thought -- e.g. levophed, aka "leave 'em dead," which keeps core blood pressure up in heart attack and massive trauma victims but can have the unpleasant side effect of reducing peripheral circulation to the point that you'll eventually have to have some limbs amputated -- but T-PA was about the only drug that we absolutely had to have a second opinion on. They didn't trust the ER docs to make the call; an internal medicine doc had to approve it. That's how vicious the stuff is. Anything that provides a major improvement will be welcome.

Leeches

[Alrescha]

I remember a newspaper article a few years back where doctors were using leeches to promote blood flow in fingers and toes which had been crushed or otherwise had damage to the blood vessels.

Seems like a similar application of natural 'tools' to solve a medical problem.

(the reason I remember the article was that many/most people were a little creeped out by the process. Grown men had to look away while doctors put the leeches on. Little boys, on the other hand, insisted on applying the leeches themselves :-)

A.

Think of it as evolution in action

[TheSHAD0W]

I would expect vampire bat saliva to have a powerful anti-clotting agent -- and to be as inoccuous otherwise as possible.

Consider: If the victims of vampire bats tended to die, the bats would soon find themselves with fewer hosts to feed from. By minimizing the damage done during a feeding, the bat could go back to the host again and again, feeding multiple times. A colony that did less damage would have a better food base and would spread more than one which killed its victims.

Re:Think of it as evolution in action

[GiMP]

Imagine how many cows/chickens/turkeys/pigs/etc we wouldn't kill if we were happy just drinking their blood... sure, we would probably have to have a lot more of those animals in captivity at one time.. but the total number of animals required for any extended period of time would be much lower..

Humans need to evolve to requiring only blood and other disposible parts.. better to hurt animals than kill them. Better than vegatables too.. vegatarians think they're so much better because they don't kill animals... they never stop to think about the plants! Plants have feelings too.

The medicine cabinet of the future...

[Hubert_Shrump]

So, do you hang them on racks, or keep them in vacuum bags?

Other side effects...

[docbrown42]

-can transform into a bat!(cool!)
-increased canine (tooth) size!
-death (no need to breath anymore)
-a tendancy to wear black clothing
-pale complexion (death will do that...)
-oh yeah, dependency on human blood!

You forgot...

[Anonymous Coward]

-severely allergic to sunlight (no problem for geeks...)

That's great for you but...

[jpsst34]

I an anemic stroke victim! I don't want my blood any thinner, thank you very much.

rambling about this stuff

[wingedsoul]

Now, they already have some medicines out there on the market to assist with clotting. The thinners that are used are supposedly quite effective. I know that a member of my own family who has had 3 clots before the age of 50 was on Coumadin. On one hand, these medicines are approved by the FDA and have been tested for side effects (and we are aware of the risks). On the other hand, Bat Saliva I would assume would be mostly if not completely pure but without intense testing, how do we know for sure? What if we were to distribute and take the saliva extract and the side effects are more severe? I thought the one comment about the side effects was funny but seriously, without further testing and results, I would recommend to let the bats alone for now. But I also want to know why they would even consider using saliva of a bat. What is next to test, Firefly guts? I always look forward to seeing advances in science either way.

What about leaches?

[BalkanBoy]

Reading this, made me wonder - how good of a clot buster is the substance that leaches release when they latch onto your skin in order to draw blood? I've seen medical use of leaches for a number of years, so there may be a possible use for them for stroke as well? Oh well, just a thought :).

I'm glad I read that twice!

[Muad'Dave]

I first read that as "Vampire Bats Might Stroke AIDs Victims".