Brazilian Spider Bite Can Cure Erectile Dysfunction
It is known that the Brazilian spider (Phoneutria nigriventer) brings not only extreme pain and discomfort when it bites victims (who end up at the hospital). What's telling about each bite is that emergency staff always know if the patient has been bitten by one, particularly male patients. This is because they always have an extreme but uncomfortable erection that lasts for hours after the bite. “The erection is a side effect that everybody who gets stung by this spider will experience along with the pain and discomfort,” said study team member Romulo Leite of the Medical College of Georgia. Now, scientists have isolated the chemical that is responsible for this side effect. Dubbed Tx2-6, it is a string of amino acids called a peptide. The venom has been tested on rats whose erections were measured with a pin and it resulted in significant increases in erection levels.