Gila tooth: he eats only 4 times a year and was able to invent a cure for diabetes (9 photos)

Paradox: a fat lazy lizard helps people lose weight! Meet the Arizona Gila monster. Thanks to it, humanity has received a cure for diabetes and a "weight loss pill"!





A plump carcass weighing 2 kg, short legs, a powerful head and pimply scales all over the body - the Gila monster is far from a model appearance. But it is not eager to shine on the catwalk. On the contrary: the reptile lives by the rules of three Ts - dark, warm and quiet.



But the Gila monster can pose like a real model!

Gila monsters hate heat and bright sun. But by a cruel joke of fate and evolution, they settled in the Mexican wastelands and arid states in the southern United States. It smokes like crazy there: the average annual temperature is 24-28°C. The reptile hides from the scorching rays somewhere in the shade all its life. And this is not an exaggeration: the Gila monster spends 90% of its time in its shelter.





If the gila monster overheats, it cools itself through... the cloaca. The mechanism works in much the same way as a dog's - a protruding tongue. The liquid on the mucous membranes evaporates and helps cool the body.

Only three things can push the lizard to any kind of movement. The first reason is the search for a more comfortable and dark burrow. The second is the desire to continue the race. Once a year, in April-May, the males crawl out in search of females, and the females - in search of a suitable place for laying eggs. As you might guess, lizards do not care about their offspring. Having laid 2-12 eggs in a hole, the mother quickly returns to her underground shelter.



That same feeling when you just woke up, but are already tired.

The third reason is hunger. But the desire to hunt for a gila monster is almost as rare as the desire to continue the family line. The reptile eats only 3-5 times a year! But wait, how is this even possible? The laws of physics have not been repealed, gila monsters in any case need to constantly get energy from somewhere, at least to maintain life. When scientists became interested in this phenomenon and began to study the metabolism of gila monsters, it turned out that the whole secret was hidden in the reptile's venom.



This is me standing guard over my room at 16, so that not a single living soul would look into it.

On the one hand, it is deadly, since it contains strong neurotoxins that turn off the nervous and respiratory systems in a matter of minutes. Gila monsters do not have truly poisonous teeth, like snakes: the poison is produced in modified salivary glands on the lower jaw. Spreading throughout the mouth, the toxin gets to the tips of the fangs along the grooves. The poison enters the victim's bloodstream through the wound along with the reptile's saliva.



By the way, the gila monster's skull looks super brutal.

It's good that the concentration and composition of the toxin only affects small animals: small birds and chicks, mice, rabbits, gophers and frogs - typical prey for reptiles. For larger animals and humans, a gila monster bite will be excruciatingly painful - but nothing more.



Over the entire period of observation, starting in the 1930s, only one case of human death from a Gila monster has been recorded due to personal intolerance to toxins.

On the other hand, lizard toxins participate in digestion thanks to a special substance, exendin-4. It is responsible for metabolism: digestion of food, its assimilation and storage. The scheme is simple: there is prey - poison is produced - exendin-4 enters the body. The digestive tract starts working, and the metabolism begins to work actively. In the case of a Gila monster, the reptile's body not only digests food, but also stores excess nutrients in reserve in the form of fat on the tail. So, in one go, the lizard can eat 1/3 of its weight, convert it into fat and not leave the hole for months.



The manicurist decided to take a photo of her work.

It is this ability to regulate metabolism that attracted scientists. As it turned out, exendin-4 is similar to glucagon-like peptide-1. This is a hormone that is produced in humans and performs similar functions. The difficult-to-pronounce peptide is produced by the pancreas and controls the normal level of glucose in the blood: it will slow down the digestion of food a little here, adjust the production of insulin a little here, and send a signal "stop eating!" to the brain when necessary. Roughly speaking, GLP ensures that we do not faint due to low glucose levels and do not die due to its excess.

So, in people with type 2 diabetes, the peptide does not work as it should, which is why the entire metabolism goes in one place. But if you replace the useless GLP with exendin-4, everything will be fine! The substance from the saliva of a lizard works longer than our natural hormone. GPP affects the body for several minutes, while exendin-4 - for several hours! Of course, diabetes will not disappear, but it will be possible to keep it in check. So scientists have established the production of artificial exendin, made the drug Semaglutide from it. Now it is better known as Ozempic, Semavik or Exenatide.



I also want to be like a gila monster: lie in my cozy hole and be useful to the whole world!

The drugs attracted public attention due to their side effect. Exendin-4, by regulating metabolism, reduces appetite and, as a result, helps you lose weight. So ozempic was dubbed a "thinness pill" - it is prescribed by doctors for excess body weight. The results are amazing: in a year, the patient is able to lose up to 25% of the initial weight! It turns out that humanity has defeated obesity? Not quite. It is still impossible to rely on one medicine alone. Reduced appetite and normalization of blood glucose levels work only when a person normalizes his lifestyle: nutrition, sleep, activity.