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Spring means ticks in most of North America, and turkey hunters\u2014along with anyone else who spends time in the woods\u2014will have to keep an eye out for the pesky little bloodsuckers this season. Ticks carry all sorts of diseases, including alpha gal<\/a> and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But the most common tick-borne illness on the continent today is Lyme disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n Help could be on the way, though. A new study conducted at the University of Massachusetts Amherst<\/a> provides an intriguing insight into the fight against Lyme disease. The study, published in the journal Vector-born and Zoonotic Diseases<\/a>,<\/em> found that whitetail deer blood actually kills the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. \u00a0<\/p>\n Read Next: <\/strong>The Mysterious Chronic Lyme Disease Nightmare: Why It\u2019s So Hard to Detect and Treat<\/a><\/p>\n Researchers have known for some time that whitetails are immune to Lyme disease, according to Dr. Stephen Rich, a professor of microbiology at UMass and the executive director of the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases<\/a>. (The center was established last year with $10 million in grant funding from the CDC.)<\/p>\n \u201cBut until publication of our paper,\u201d Rich says, \u201cno one had done the experiment to show that deer blood\u2014specifically the serum component of white-tailed deer blood\u2014kills Lyme disease.\u201d<\/p>\n Rich tells Outdoor Life<\/em> that he\u2019s always found it curious how whitetails are not susceptible to Lyme disease, even though deer are the primary hosts for the ticks that carry the disease. He never really had an answer for why, and was excited when doctoral student Patrick Pearson approached him about doing an experiment focusing on this connection. <\/p>\n \u201cI thought, Oh that\u2019s perfect<\/em>, because I\u2019ve wanted to answer this question for people for quite some time,\u201d Rich says. \u201cThe study was really wrought out of public interest and understanding exactly what role deer play in all this.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers at UMass obtained whitetail blood serum from a semi-captive deer herd in Alabama that had not been exposed to ticks or the bacterium that causes Lyme disease (a pathogen known as Borrelia burgdorferi)<\/em>. After growing the bacteria in a test tube, they introduced the deer blood serum and saw that it killed the bacteria. This realization could eventually lead to new strategies for how we prevent and treat Lyme disease in humans, Rich says. But we still have a lot to learn.<\/p>\n \u201cThis discovery tells us that deer blood is relevant to the killing of the Lyme agent,\u201d Rich explains. \u201cNow we\u2019ll dig in and figure out exactly what is going on in the deer blood that\u2019s causing this effect.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds that someday, humans could theoretically find a way to harness this effect in drug form. He cautions, however, that even experimental pharmaceuticals would be a long ways out and would require significantly more research.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want people to walk away and think we\u2019re proposing that they inject themselves with deer blood.\u201d<\/p>\n The potentially debilitating illness is of particular concern to those living in the Eastern and Midwestern United States. These regions are home to the two primary epicenters of the disease, which has been around since the 1970s. While deaths from Lyme disease are rare, it affects more than 470,000 people annually, according to the CDC<\/a>.<\/p>\nLyme Disease Is a Real Risk to Hunters in the Midwest and Northeast<\/h2>\n