Wise Mind Herbs

About Wise Mind Herbs

Wise Mind Herbs was created by Peter Jorgensen, BSc, MA, with the goal of providing a free scientific overview of some of the most popular herbal and 'natural' medicines. Hopefully, this will help people understand the scientific evidence that may support the use of plants, mosses, lichen, and fungi, in promoting optimal health. Typically, there are many knowledge gaps, and precautions, and they should be understood too. You can support this resource by donating here:

Natural complexity

It should be no surprise that billions of years of evolution have produced metabolic and biological interactions between living organisms. Plants and fungi share similar threats to mammals, including viruses, bacteria, fungal infection, and environmental stress. They also have no means of escaping pathogens and predators other than morphological and biochemical solutions. This means that most plants have significantly more base pairs in their genome than mammals, and a much greater library of genes. Their complexity means that understanding plants and the biochemical resources they produce is highly complex and usually not well understood.

Plants come under attack from all manner of organisms, and they can't escape.

Take wheat (Triticum aestivum) as an example. This staple food crop has six sets of chromosomes (a hexaploid species), a genome of 16 billion base pairs, and 107 000 genes. (A base pair is a 'rung' on the helical ladder often used to depict DNA, it takes two nucleotides to make a base pair, but even 'trusted' sources seem to conflate the terms.) Humans have 3 billion base pairs and approximately 40 000 genes (including non-coding genes). Paris japonica is currently the record holder for the largest known genome in the plant kingdom. This plant, often known as Lily-of-the-Valley or Pieris, has 150 billion base pairs. Discovering which combinations of these base pairs form genes is so complex, we're a long way off approaching anything like a thorough knowledge of plants or their properties. We still don't understand the complexity of our own genome, so it's likely that exploring the potential of naturally-occurring medicines (including food sources), plus their synergistic potential, is a project with endless scope.

The number of base pairs in humans compared with other organisms (billions)

The number of base pairs in different organisms (billions). Bacterium (Sorangium cellulosum), Human (Homo sapiens), Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), Wheat (Triticum aestivum), Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri), Pieris (Paris japonica), Polychaos dubium (an ameboid). Sources at foot of page.

Humans are not all the same

Using ethnopharmaceuticals is also complicated by the huge variability in the human genome. We are not all the same, but essentially different. Even identical twins have differences in their genome. No two human beings are the same, even if they look the same. This means that our response to ingested, or applied, substances may be different. In fact, our own response to the same substance can change over time, and be dependent on when, how, and with what additional factors we are exposed to the things we use to heal our bodies.

Similar plants are not all the same

Due to their complex genetic foundation, the substances produced by plants, including things like essential oils, can vary. The same plant might produce different biochemicals at different times of the day, during different stages of growth, and in response to small changes in their environment, like precipitation, sunlight, pathogens, and predators. Even two plants from the same species, grown in the same field, can show significant variability in their morphology and biological constituents. When it comes to using substances for medicine, this variability can change their strength and effectiveness. Where there is scientific evidence for specific plant products to act as medicine, standardized supplements can be especially useful. This way, you know you're getting the right substance, and the quantity you're ingesting. With other products, the variability might mean that some products work, sometimes, and only at certain times of the year.

The dangers of plant medicine

Naturally occurring medicines often have multiple issues that can inhibit their efficacy, or even make them harmful. Some of these things are to do with the substances produced by the plant. Remember, many plants have developed systems of biochemical warfare to deter their consumption by insects, birds, and mammals. Frequently, part of the plant is edible, while other parts are poisonous. One example is Yew (Taxus baccata). Mostly this is a highly noxious plant, but it produces seeds within edible red berries (technically arils). However, the seed itself is toxic. The reason for this accidental adaptation is that those animals, likely birds, who eat the aril, swallow the seed whole, and pass it out in their faeces, gain a food source, and they also spread viable seed which enables the plant to multiply. It is important the seed is not damaged, otherwise the plant will not spread. Creatures that might damage it during consumption will either get poisoned, or will fail to spread new propagants, hence depleting a potential food source.

The way plants are grown and cultivated will also affect their health benefits. Non-organic products might be sprayed with noxious chemicals that remain in the final product, be it a supplement or a tea. Plants grown in soils containing contaminants, or high concentrations of heavy metals, can take up these substances, and they can persist in the plant matter when harvested. When products are produced from dried and concentrated plant matter, the contaminants are also concentrated. If suppliers are not monitoring and testing the contents of their products, consumers could be ingesting toxins thinking they are using 'healthy' products. Chronic exposure to pesticides, heavy metals, fungal metabolites, and the like, can cause very serious health problems, including cancer, metabolic disorders, and neurological issues.

Sourcing the good stuff

Unless you're growing your own produce, testing your soil, water, and any other substances applied to plants, and having a lab perform a full biochemical profile of your harvest, there is no way to be entirely certain of what you are using. The way the economy is structured pushes people to cut corners, and invites unethical people to take advantage of market conditions by selling fraudulent products, or fabricating claims about them. Evidence for this is quite shocking. Some people also see this market as an easy target, and have no awareness of the complexities involved. The same often applies to growers who are utterly clueless, or careless, about the complexity of growing, or harvesting, useful medicinal products. Your best bet might be to try well-established companies with adequate resources to pay for proper testing, and the auditing of growers and their practices, but don't assume they're immune to the corruption associated with market pressures, human desire, and greed.

Developing your intuition and instinct

Developing an intuitive feel for potentially useful, or problematic, plants is a skill that sensitive individuals can hone over time.

Much of the knowledge and experience contained within our genome is not conscious or rationally structured. You can sniff milk and tell if it's off, or on the turn, without sending it off for laboratory analysis. People who intuitively dislike certain foods might actually have a sensitivity, or an allergy, that they are unaware of. They might be sensing the presence of a contaminant and their body is sending a signal to avoid it. Consciously, this emerges as an uncomfortable feeling, or aversion. However, we can also develop likes and dislikes that are not physiologically beneficial. We can associate things with bad experiences that were present at the time, but not caused by, the thing we ingested or applied. Plus, the modern world, and its drive for efficiency, attempts to standardize and homogenize all aspects of life. While this can make sense on one level, it fails when tested against reality. The downside to this entrenched culture is that it devalues sensitivity and non-verbal forms of sentience. Like any human skill, feeling our way around food and medicines is a skill. We can develop it, provided we have sufficient freedom, the capacity and desire to experiment, and a high degree of sensitive self-awareness. Developing patient and focused practices, such as smelling, touching, tasting, observing, and holistic synergistic feeling, is a fine thing to work on. Body-focused meditation can be a great way to begin to get to know yourself better.

References

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Lindblad-Toh, K., Garber, M., Zuk, O., Lin, M. F., Parker, B. J., Washietl, S., ... & Kellis, M. (2011). A high-resolution map of human evolutionary constraint using 29 mammals. Nature, 478(7370), 476-482.

McGrath, C. L., & Katz, L. A. (2004). Genome diversity in microbial eukaryotes. Trends in ecology & evolution, 19(1), 32-38.

Meyer, A., Schloissnig, S., Franchini, P., Du, K., Woltering, J. M., Irisarri, I., ... & Schartl, M. (2021). Giant lungfish genome elucidates the conquest of land by vertebrates. Nature, 590(7845), 284-289.

Nurk, S., Koren, S., Rhie, A., Rautiainen, M., Bzikadze, A. V., Mikheenko, A., ... & Phillippy, A. M. (2022). The complete sequence of a human genome. Science, 376(6588), 44-53.

Pfeifer, M., Kugler, K. G., Sandve, S. R., Zhan, B. J., Rudi, H., & Hvidsten, T. R. (2014). International wheat genome sequencing consortium. Genome interplay in the grain transcriptome of hexaploid bread wheat. Science, 345, 1250091.

Schneiker, S., Perlova, O., Kaiser, O., Gerth, K., Alici, A., Altmeyer, M. O., ... & Müller, R. (2007). Complete genome sequence of the myxobacterium Sorangium cellulosum. Nature biotechnology, 25(11), 1281-1289.

Shen, J., Cong, Q., Kinch, L. N., Borek, D., Otwinowski, Z., & Grishin, N. V. (2016). Complete genome of Pieris rapae, a resilient alien, a cabbage pest, and a source of anti-cancer proteins. F1000Research, 5, 2631.

Suárez-Villota, E.Y., Vargas, R.A., Marchant, C.L., Torres, J.E., Köhler, N., Núñez, J.J., De La Fuente, R., Page, J. and Gallardo, M.H., 2012. Distribution of repetitive DNAs and the hybrid origin of the red vizcacha rat (Octodontidae). Genome, 55(2), pp.105-117.