Spit is good

April 30, 2005 9:27 AM

Spit is good for your health. An experimental drug made from gila monster saliva may help with type 2 diabetes.
posted by C17H19NO3 (6 comments total)

Finally modern medical science catches up with what people who make out with gila monsters have known for centuries.
posted by Simon! at 9:30 AM on April 30, 2005

simon : >

this is also connected to the loss of biodiversity and rainforests in general--lots of plants and animals have things that help with disease (and see the leech thread the other day)--if we only could find/recognize them before they're gone.
posted by amberglow at 9:56 AM on April 30, 2005

Actually, it's Gila monster venom; they're one of only two venomous lizard species.

Wonderful stuff, venom. All kinds of interesting proteins.
posted by mcwetboy at 10:09 AM on April 30, 2005

I'm sorry, I didn't read the first article before commenting in re saliva vs. venom. My mistake: I had been hearing about this for several years, and it was associated with venom rather than when I heard it, but that may have been third-hand.
posted by mcwetboy at 10:16 AM on April 30, 2005

The WebMD link is almost a year old. The really interesting aspect of this to me (as a type II diabetic) is that Byetta, the lizard-spit drug, just received final FDA approval (as in yesterday), and is expected to go on the market June 1.

(Washington Post story here; egregious self-link to own blog here.)
posted by enrevanche at 10:20 AM on April 30, 2005

I'm a type 2 diabetic as well and am hoping this gets approved in Canada soon (I am unaware if it's even up for approval).

Thanks for the link to your post, enrevanche, that made me laugh. :-)
posted by deborah at 11:23 AM on April 30, 2005