The evolution of animal self-medication and lessons for the development of medicine and new medicines

Parasites, viruses and other pathogens cause a variety of diseases that affect the behavior and reproductive fitness of an individual. While the study of animal self-medication as a science is relatively new, to date, research has classified health maintenance and self-medicative behaviors into four levels: 1) optimal avoidance or reduction of disease transmission: 2) the dietary selection of items with a preventative or health maintenance affect: 3) ingestion of a substance for the curative treatment of a disease or the symptoms thereof: and 4) external application of a substance to the body for the treatment or control of disease bearing insects. Of any species studied thus far, chimpanzees have provided the most details for level 2 and 3 behaviors, exemplified by such behaviors as bitter pith chewing and whole leaf swallowing used in response to parasite infection [1], [2]. This presentation will review the progress to date in primates, and compare these strategies with examples from other species to illustrate the wide and deep evolutionary origins of self-medication in the animal kingdom and show how this bio-rational approach can aid in the search for new natural plant compounds and has found new uses for well known compounds in human and livestock health care.

• References

• 1 Huffman MA. Current evidence for self-medication in primates: a multidisciplinary perspective. Yearbook Phys Anthropol 1997; 40: 171-200.
• 2 Huffman MA Animal self-medication and ethnomedicine: exploration and exploitation of the medicinal properties of plants. . Pro Nutr Soc 2003; 62: 371-381.
• 3 Animal Doctors, ARTE television (Produced and Directed by R Productions, Jacques Mitsch). 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eYeWyHuQOE