Singapore - The alarming rate of biodiversity loss and species extinction threatens the discovery of new avenues of medical research and treatments for a wide range of diseases, a new book said on Wednesday. A new generation of antibiotics, treatments for cancer, thinning bone
disease and kidney failure may all stand to be lost unless the world acts to reverse the present alarming trend, said "Sustaining Life," the work of more than 100 experts and supported by several UN bodies.
"The natural world holds secrets to the development of new kinds of safer and more powerful pain-killers; treatments for a leading cause of blindness - macular degeneration - and possibly ways of re-growing lost tissues and organs" by studying newts and salamanders," the book maintains.
Experts warn, however, that many of the land and marine-based life forms of
economic and medical interest may be lost before their secrets are learned.
The key findings of the book were disclosed during the Business for the Environment Summit in Singapore and in the run-up to the 9th meeting of parties to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)-linked Convention on Biological Diversity taking place in Bonn, Germany later in May.
"Habitat loss, destruction and degradation of ecosystems, pollution, over-exploitation and climate change are among the powerful and persistent impacts that are running down the planet's nature-based capital, including the medical treasure trove of the world's biodiversity," UN Under-Secretary General Achim Steiner told a briefing on the book.
In what was described as a particularly illustrative example of the affects of species extinction, the authors focused on the southern gastric brooding frog (Rheobatrachus), discovered in undisturbed rainforests of Australia in the 1980s.
The frogs raised their young in the female's stomach where they would, in other animals, be digested by enzymes and acid.
Preliminary studies indicated that the baby frogs produced a substance that inhibited acid and enzyme secretions and prevented the mother from emptying her stomach into her intestine while the young were developing."
The book's authors, Eric Chivian and Aaron Berstein at Harvard Medical School, noted that the research on gastric brooding frogs could have led to new insights into preventing and treating human peptic ulcers which affect 25 million people in the United States alone.
"But these studies could not be continued because both species of Rheobactrachus became extinct, and the valuable medical secrets they held are now gone forever," they said.
Seven threatened groups of organisms valuable to
medicine were identified, including amphibians, bears, cone snails, sharks, nonhuman primates, gymnosperms, and horseshoe crabs.
The losses to human health when species go extinct include "promising new avenues of medical research and new treatments, pharmaceuticals and diagnostic tests," the report said.
Nearly one-third of the approximately 6,000 known amphibian species are threatened with extinction. "These animals produce a wide range of novel substances, some of which are made only by amphibians living in the wild, not by those in captivity," said the report.
Nine species of bear are also threatened with extinction including the polar bear, Giant Panda and the Asiatic Black bear.
"Many bears are at risk because they are killed for body parts, such as gall bladders, which can command high prices in black markets in places like China,
Japan and Thailand," the report said.
Some bear species, known as "denning' bears because they enter into a largely dormant state when food is scarce, "are of tremendous value to medicine as they are able to recycle a wide variety of their body's substances.
The authors said studying denning bears may lead to more effective treatment for end-stage renal disease, Type 1 and Type II
diabetes as well as obesity.
