“Many of those local species are in rapid decline, mainly because of the fungus that is killing them.” There are potentially many new drugs for humans and other species,” Ibáñez says. “Our claim is that there are many compounds in the toads that are worth researching for humans. He helped to identify 47 species of frogs and toads which are used in traditional medicines and then narrowed in on the 15 species that are members of the bufonidae family. Roberto Ibáñez, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, has co-authored a paper in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology that brings together everything currently known to science about bufotoxins. Bufotoxins have been individually studied in the past but there was no single compendium of research on them. Other bufotoxins have been used to treat diseases among horses and cattle. According to one 2011 study, the toad produces a substance that effects "significant antitumor activity, including inhibition of cell proliferation, induction of cell differentiation, induction of apoptosis, disruption of the cell cycle, inhibition of cancer angiogenesis, reversal of multi-drug resistance, and regulation of the immune response." Bufo gargarizans, an Asian species of toad, produces a substance that could even prove useful in the treatment of certain cancers. These chemicals, called bufotoxins, probably evolved to deter predators but they may offer a variety of other uses, including as medicine. This isn't true, but many species of toads and frogs in the family bufonidae do produce unique chemicals that can poison or even kill an animal or human foolish enough to try to eat one. An old myth says that touching a toad will give you warts.
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