Spider In Your Pants?
Set up the drumroll please: “…or are you just happy to see me?”
They’ve found a potential new erection drug in spider venom. From BBC News:
Spider venom could boost sex life
By Vladimir Hernandez
BBC NewsBrazilian and US scientists are looking into using spider venom as a possible treatment for male impotence.
Their investigation follows reports that men bitten by the Phoneutria nigriventer experienced priapism – long and painful erections.
A two-year study has found that the venom contains a toxin, called Tx2-6, that causes erections.
Further tests are being carried out in the US before the substance can be approved for human use.
The results, from the Medical College of Georgia, are expected in a month’s time.
The bite of Phoneutria nigriventer, known as the Brazilian wandering spider, is potent and can be deadly in some cases.
The Brazilian and US researchers interviewed men who claimed their sex lives had improved after a spider attack.
The relevant toxin identified in the venom has been tested successfully on other animals.
So far, scientists believe that combining a version of the spider’s venom with an existing drug for erectile dysfunction – such as Viagra, Cialis or Levitra – could produce better results.
Thanks to World Sex News for the link.
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Oh yeah, that’s one of the side effects of a spider bite. Wall crawling, spidey sense, web shooters, and a giant boner.
Peter Parker is taking some serious risks dressing in spandex then… :)
Long and painful erections? I have a Husband that is allergic to pain, I can’t ever imagine Him wanting a painful erection, even if it was the only erection He could have. I have to worry just a little bit about all the poisons we are willing to put into our bodies to apparently make them look better or be harder as the case may be. I am not sure we have really thought this through.
Er, I think the idea is to control the dosage in order to get some of the effect without the extremes of an uncontrolled spider-fang injection dosage.
Oh, I do realise the idea is to control the dosage, but still, it is a poison. And we got the idea from the effect of the poison on the body. It is kind of like botox injections, that idea worries me too.
You can’t actually say if a substance is a poison until you know the dosage and the route of administration. You can eat asbestos safely, although I wouldn’t recommend it. There’s enough vitamin A in a polar bear liver to kill you if you ate it.
I’m curious as to what spiders they are using in this study.
On a side note, I was born at the Medical College of Georgia.
This is also part of the new chuck palahniuk novel “Rant”. The main character gets bit to get it up.
Er, the spider is identified in the text?
Dosage is the difference between a helpful substance and a poison. Just about any drug can be detrimental to health if taken in too high a dose. Even helpful things, like the vitamin A mentioned above, can cause problems. One of the most common ODs among children are those yummy vitamin tablets; the iron can be deadly at higher doses.
Venoms have become a huge new area of bio-research due to their many bioactive compounds. Elapid (family of snakes including cobras, corals, and, mambas) venom is being researched for treatments to chronic pain. Apparently some of their neurotoxins are potent non-opioid analgesics.
Great link, Bacchus!
And I’m a double Skorpion living in Georgia!