Friday, February 17, 2012

Yet another medicinal reason for beer consumption


It kills blood borne parasites.  At least in fruit flies.  A common scourge of fruit flies is a parasitic wasp.  The wasp lays its eggs in the fruit fly larvae where they grow until eventually killing the host and hatching.  Well, fruit flies have come up with a defense.  If you think about it, they live in a world of booze.  Their food is decaying fruit.  Another way to describe decaying fruit is fermenting fruit.  The amount of alcohol in their normal environment can range from 5 to 15%.  (Mine too because I like the heavier microbrews . . .)  Researchers found that infected fruit flies actually sought out and consumed alcohol to kill the parasites.  And it worked.  When they dissected the the previously infected fruit flies, the researchers found wasp larvae with organs spewing out their anuses.  The interesting part is that the infected fruit flies actually sought out the alcohol where the uninfected ones did not.  So if you will excuse me, I need to go do a little paraticide.  Just in case.  TGIF.

2 comments:

Dave H said...

I wonder if consuming larger quantities of alcohol would repel larger parasites, like entertainment industry executives.

2cents said...

Dunno, but it's worth a try.