I would think of myself as an animal lover. Furry things with four legs I consider cute, and I might even be able to tolerate iguanas. However, a snake, you wouldn’t see me in the same room.
Here is why:
You see, we have this amazing thing in our bodies called blood, which performs many vital functions such as carrying oxygen and nutrients to the body’s cells and tissues. Blood is composed of plasma, red blood cells, platelets, and white blood cells. Blood plays a role in protecting our body from infections, making clots, and is used to maintain blood pressure with the use of our cardiovascular system.
Now, snakes with venom can drastically alter and disrupt blood and blood vessels. Snake venom can fall into three different groups: neurotoxic (characterised by its ability to cause paralysis), cytotoxic (characterised by its ability to cause swelling and blistering at the site of a snake bite), and haemotoxicity, which has cardiovascular effects that drastically drop blood pressure.
One of the toxins involved in doing this is called SVMPs (Slagboom et al., 2017). SVMPs increase vascular permeability by degrading the capillary basement membranes, causing a leakage overall reducing blood pressure and initiating hemorrhaging (Gutierrez et al, 2016).
Despite all of the negative contributions haemotoxins can cause on the body, they can have a pharmaceutical use. Bradykinin is a component of this venom that has been used for medication as an ACE inhibitor. One of the first mainstream drugs developed was Captopril through its inhibition, prevents vasoconstriction, making it a useful drug that can lower blood pressure for patients who deal with high blood pressure.
This goes to show snakes may have a decent purpose… I suppose, and those guys who go on snake hunts may not be as crazy as they seem.
Counter-argument: snakes are slithery and cute. No but seriously, your title caught my attention as despite never having owned a snake, I find they make super cool pets! I was not aware of the complex mechanism involved when human blood is exposed to snake venom though, so this is definitely good to be aware of! I guess to compensate I will stick to just hanging with the non-venomous ones :)
ReplyDeleteAlso counter argument, (because i have a bearded dragon), human bites are much more dangerous than snake bites. And I think the chances of getting bit by a human in healthcare is a bit higher than getting bit by a snake. (source, i am a CNA)
ReplyDeleteAs someone who hates snakes, as well, I had NO idea that there could be anything positive from these creatures. Learning that their venom can be put to good use is beyond me, honestly, but that is the beautiful nature of physiology. I would be curious to know what other venomous creatures can be used clinically. I will be sure to not vilify all these animals, as they serve a very particular purpose in our ecosystems. More research should be given to discovering how the animals can help us from a health perspective.
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