Self-medicating gorillas may hold clues to new drugs -

Getty Images Western lowland gorilla feeding on a plant — Fewer than 150,000 western lowland gorillas survive in the wild in Central and West Africa

Self-medicating gorillas may hold clues to future drug discovery, according to scientists.

Researchers in Gabon studied tropical plants eaten by wild gorillas – and used also by local human healers – identifying four with medicinal effects.

Laboratory studies revealed the plants were high in antioxidants and antimicrobials.

One showed promise in fighting superbugs.

Western lowland gorillas live in dense forest, feeding on stems, bamboo shoots and fruits

Getty Images Western lowland gorilla feeding on stems — Western lowland gorillas live in dense forest, feeding on stems, bamboo shoots and fruits

Great apes are known to self-medicate by selecting plants with healing properties.

A wounded orangutan recently made headlines for using a plant paste to heal an injury.

In the latest study, botanists recorded the plants eaten by western lowland gorillas in Gabon’s Moukalaba-Doudou National Park.

They selected four trees that were likely to be beneficial, based on interviews with local healers: the fromager tree (Ceiba pentandra), giant yellow mulberry (Myrianthus arboreus), African teak (Milicia excelsa) and fig trees (Ficus).

The bark of the trees – used in traditional medicine to treat everything from stomach complaints to infertility – contained chemicals with medicinal effects, from phenols to flavonoids.

Gabon is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, with a huge reservoir of unexplored and potentially medicinal plants

Getty Images Forests of Gabon — Gabon is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, with a huge reservoir of unexplored and potentially medicinal plants

All four plants showed antibacterial activity against at least one multidrug-resistant strain of the bug, E. coli.

The fromager tree in particular showed “remarkable activity” against all tested strains, they say.

“This suggests that gorillas evolved to eat plants that benefit them, and highlights the huge gaps in our knowledge of the Central African rainforests,” said Dr Joanna Setchell, an anthropologist at the University of Durham, UK, who worked on the study with Gabonese scientists.