'Ant-idotes' make millions for China

'Ant-idotes' make millions for China

BEIJING (AFP): China's pharmaceutical industry is making one
billion yuan (US$120 million) a year from the common ant, which
has proved startlingly efficacious in treating maladies from
arthritis to impotence, Xinhua said yesterday.

The ant's miraculous powers came to light recently following
the discovery by Prof. Wu Zhicheng -- known as "King Ant" for his
studies into the insect -- that ant's bodies contain more than 50
kinds of nutritious substances.

According to Wu, ant medicines developed by his Ants Therapy
Research Center in Nanjing have allowed 5,000 paralyzed people to
stand again, and cured some 280,000 hepatitis-B sufferers.

The medicines have also proved effective in treating
infertility and sexual impotence in men, he added.

In eastern Shandong province, a company has recently started
to mass produce an ant medicine mixed with "dates, fleece-flower
root and wolfberry root" that is capable of treating 93 percent
of various kinds of arthritic problems, the news agency said.

Some doctors claim that the practice of "ant therapy" is 3,000
years old in China.