Venom of the black mamba snake is a potent painkiller, say scientists

Venom of the black mamba snake is a potent painkiller, say scientists


(NaturalNews) The black mamba is the longest, fastest, and most
poisonous snake in Africa, and its venom is a ferocious neurotoxin that
paralyzes and kills small animals. According to French scientists at the
Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology in Nice, though, this venom also contains a natural painkiller so powerful that it puts morphine to shame.

The researchers, whose report was published in the journal Nature,
were investigating the venom of approximately 50 species of snakes
before coming upon the black mamba's painkilling compound, a peptide
called mambalgin. Unlike morphine, which is addictive and contains side
effects such as muscle twitching, migraines, brain fog, and vomiting,
mambalgins contain few if any side effects due to the different routes
by which they block sensations of pain.

"When it was tested in
mice, the analgesia was as strong as morphine, but you don't have most
of the side-effects," said Dr. Eric Lingueglia, co-author of the study.
"It is the very first stage, of course, and it is difficult to tell if
it will be a painkiller in humans or not."

Dr. Nicholas Casewell, a snake venom expert at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine,
admits that it is "really odd" that the black mamba venom contains
pain-killing compounds. He suggested that mambalgins might work in
conjunction with other toxins contained in the venom to "prevent the
prey from getting away." It is also possible that the peptide affects
different animals in different ways.

"It's very exciting, it's a
really great example of drugs from venom, we're talking about an
entirely new class of analgesics," he concluded.

Natural origins, unnatural results

Despite
the questionable means by which the scientists discovered the effects
of mambalgins (animal testing), their revelation is significant because
it highlights, once again, the natural origins of many allopathic drugs.

Although
Big Pharma would like us to believe otherwise, a lot of their
best-selling drugs are derived from natural sources that are far cheaper
and safer to utilize in their uncorrupted form. One of the main
ingredients in the popular painkiller
aspirin, for example, is salicylic acid, a compound derived from the
salicin contained in white willow bark. Similarly, many throat lozenges
are made from licorice, a natural painkiller. And of course there's
morphine, which is made from a compound found in opium poppies. If Dr.
Lingueglia's team finds that mambalgins work just as effectively on
humans as they do on mice, it's possible that these peptides will find
their way into up-and-coming painkillers as well, despite the harm this
might do to ourselves (and, indeed, the black mamba population).

Source:-
http://www.naturalnews.com/039398_black_mamba_snake_venom_painkiller.html