Chimpanzee Medicine: Could Their Habits Lead to New Drug Discoveries?

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Chimp Meds

Would you trust a chimp’s medical advice? Researchers observed wild chimpanzees in Uganda using plants with medicinal properties.

• Study: 4 years following injured or sick chimps

• Focusing on unusual eating behaviors while sick/injured

• 90% of plants samples tested inhibited bacterial growth

All chimps followed during the study made full recoveries. While this doesn’t prove the plant treatments worked, it shows our distant cousins may helps us discover new medicines if we can protect their habitats. This stuff is bananas!

Source: BBC

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