I Love Cockroaches

I love them. I really do. My husband tells me that I’m crazy for loving cockroaches, but even he has to admit that they are one of the most fascinating and adaptable insects on the planet. Why? Because of the simple fact that cockroaches have managed to survive for more than 350 million years, through 5 mass extinctions in the history of mankind!

I Love Cockroaches

What’s not to hate about cockroaches?

They skitter. They scurry from sewers to kitchen sinks. They’re disgusting, disturbing and seemingly indestructible.

The planet’s 4,600 species of cockroach might make us squirm, but they also offer insight for humans on complex problems in medicine, technology and robotics — if we can stop swatting and stomping them long enough to take a good look.

 

Simon Sponberg, an assistant professor of physics and biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology who studies cockroach locomotion, says the hair on the back of his neck still stands up when he handles them. Still, he says, they’re inspiring critters.

“I have no love for cockroaches, but you don’t have to love insects to be able to study and appreciate them,” Sponberg says. “There’s enough interesting science there that my curiosity can overcome my initial feeling of discomfort.”

Here are five reasons to give the reviled roach a chance:

 

Reason #1: It may be the just the super bug we need to fight superbugs!

Cockroaches have been around for 300 million years — and that survival rate is not by luck.

They inhabit hazardous, unsanitary and pathogen-dense places such as feces, sewage pipes, garbage and rotting corpses. They can survive a month without food, 45 minutes underwater and blasts of all sorts of radiation, insecticides and infectious diseases.

Their hardiness is due in part to a powerful defensive mechanism. When cockroaches detect potentially harmful microbes, their bodies produce pathogen-thwarting proteins. Now, researchers are exploring whether those cockroach proteins might help in the development of drugs to overcome antibiotic resistance in humans.

Over the last decade, scientists have successfully isolated antibacterial proteins produced by various species of cockroach and tested their ability to battle bacterial infections such as strep, E. coli, salmonella and pneumonia.

In 2011, British researchers determined that 100 microliters of a cocktail of roach and locust brain tissues could kill more than 90 percent of an infectious bacterial mix. In 2016, researchers identified 11 cockroach-produced peptides that showed strong antimicrobial activity against harmful bacteria without toxic effects.

Scientists have not yet determined the genetic sequence of those peptides, much less developed them into any kind of therapeutic drug, but there is already growing scientific evidence that cockroaches harbor medically useful substances.

 

Reason #2: They’re a folk remedy backed by some credible science.

Cockroaches have been an ingredient in folk medicine around the world to treat everything from heartburn to alcoholism, epilepsy, bronchitis, diarrhea, stroke and menstrual cramps. Cockroach soup is a folk treatment for uterine and urinary problems in parts of India. In Latin America, the giant cockroach is used to treat asthma.

Despite this long history of entomotherapy — insects as medicine — researchers have only recently begun testing the effectiveness of cockroach compounds and extracts, writes Rutgers University medical chemist Lauren Seabrooks in a 2017 paper on insects as an underrepresented resource for biologically active natural products.

Though it’s still early days for cockroaches and Western medicine, there is already limited medical evidence from Chinese researchers suggesting a biological basis for at least some of those roach-infused folk remedies. A 2014 experiment led to the discovery of cockroach compounds toxic to human liver and breast cancer cells, and another 2016 study isolated five new cockroach compounds and identified two as potential drug targets for cancer. In a small clinical study in China of 60 sepsis patients, those treated with cockroach extract improved significantly.

Research has also supported the effectiveness of a cockroach tincture for tempering asthma and allergic reactions, as well as the wound-healing properties of a cockroach ethanol extract used in traditional Chinese medicine.

“It is clear that Mother Nature has more to offer the world of medicine than just plants,” Seabrooks writes. “Public perception of insects should not deter scientific pioneers.”

I Love Cockroaches

Cockroaches are a common household pest, but if you’re looking for a way to get rid of them without resorting to chemicals or other aggressive methods, we’ve got the solution!

List Of I Love Cockroaches