A deadly spider might hold the cure for preventing brain damage from strokes | The World Weekly

Once every two seconds, someone somewhere in the world will suffer a stroke. Once every five seconds, one of these stroke victims will die.

Strokes remain one of the biggest blots on human health, and not just because of the death toll. They also have debilitating long-term effects on the five million people who survive them every year.

Researchers from the University of Queensland and Monash University may have found a weapon for fighting stroke damage from an unlikely source: the venom of a spider capable of killing a human in 15 minutes.

A study of the venom produced by Darling Downs funnel web spiders found that it contained a protein which can reduce stroke-induced brain damage. The protein, HI1a, works by blocking acid-sensing ion channels in the brain.

A dose administered to lab rats two hours after a stroke reduced the level of brain damage by 80%. Further trials will verify whether HI1a is similarly potent in humans.

Such a treatment would be unprecedented. According to the paper, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there are currently “no approved drugs for treating the neuronal injury caused to the brain by the oxygen deprivation occurring during an ischemic stroke”.

The treatment was still able to have a sizeable effect when delivered eight hours after the stroke occurred, reducing brain damage by 65%.

At the moment, doctors are only able to fight the cause of the stroke (usually a blood clot within the brain), but by the time such a procedure has been performed a huge amount of damage may already have been done. This problem is compounded by the fact that many people fail to recognise the symptoms of a stroke quickly enough to receive prompt treatment. The deadly venom of the Darling Downs spider may give them a second lease of life.