Tiny ants swollen with honey could hold the key to new medical treatment
December 26, 2023 3:52 PM Subscribe
Tiny ants swollen with honey could hold the key to new medical treatments. Aboriginal people have used honeypot ants to treat everything from cuts to colds for generations. Now a team of scientists from Sydney studying the West Australian ants say they could hold the key to new medical treatments.
Kenya Fernandes, a researcher from the University of Sydney, said early tests found the honey was effective at killing some types of bacteria and fungi that can be life-threatening in humans.
"What was really exciting about this was that these types of microbes are actually ones that we consider to be really tough and really hard to kill," Dr Fernandes said.
"An example would be staph which you might know as golden staph.
"This is a bacteria that can cause a lot of different infections ranging from minor skin wounds to really severe life-threatening types of illnesses."
A study recently published by Dr Fernandes and her colleagues found honey ant honey was as effective against golden staph as bee-produced manuka honey, and more effective than bee-produced jarrah honey.
"What was really exciting about this was that these types of microbes are actually ones that we consider to be really tough and really hard to kill," Dr Fernandes said.
"An example would be staph which you might know as golden staph.
"This is a bacteria that can cause a lot of different infections ranging from minor skin wounds to really severe life-threatening types of illnesses."
A study recently published by Dr Fernandes and her colleagues found honey ant honey was as effective against golden staph as bee-produced manuka honey, and more effective than bee-produced jarrah honey.
Try these nasty fucks .
Ubiquitous, normally harmless, nearly impossible to culture because they don't eat anything most of the time... Except flesh, sometimes. Ask me how I know, OK, no don't...
posted by Windopaene at 4:23 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ubiquitous, normally harmless, nearly impossible to culture because they don't eat anything most of the time... Except flesh, sometimes. Ask me how I know, OK, no don't...
posted by Windopaene at 4:23 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Honey ants are also delicious. I wonder how many Indigenous parents through the eons have been able to treat a cold thanks to just how tasty the medicine is? I can't help imagining some mum with a sick but still wriggly toddler going LOOK IT'S A HONEY ANT, WHAT A TREAT! YOU'LL LIKE IT! MAYBE YOUR BROTHER WOULD LIKE IT, DO YOU THINK? and have the kid eat it up out of spite.
posted by Jilder at 6:22 PM on December 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Jilder at 6:22 PM on December 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
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These results look incredibly shaky and preliminary to me, but I hope they ultimately mean that others get spared what I dealt with. And I also hope, if this pans out, that the Tjupan people receive the compensation they deserve.
posted by humbug at 4:10 PM on December 26, 2023 [7 favorites]