Category: Plants & Medicine
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Perhaps The Biggest Medical Story Of The Year And It Began As Something Growing On A Rotting Eggplant
In 2010, when Lilly Holst scraped a lump of soil from the underside of a rotting eggplant, she had no idea that this act would help to save the life of a British teenager, eight years later and 6,000 miles away. (Click on title for full story.)
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Hops, Not Just For Beer Anymore. (It Produces Cancer-Fighting Chemicals too!)
The plant that adds flavor, color and bitterness to beer also produces a primary compound that thwarts cancer cells, and two important derivatives of the compound do as well, new research shows. (Click on title for full story.)
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What Will Happen When Tons Of Antibiotics Are Sprayed On Florida Citrus Groves Annually? No One Can Say.
Academic researchers disagree on how much ecological harm or antibiotic resistance will result. (Click on title for full story.)
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Good News For Leukemia Patients: Drug From Plum Yew Synthesized At Last
Historically, HHT has been made by adding an ester to cephalotaxine, an alkaloid derived from the leaves of an Asian tree: the plum yew. And the only way to get more cephalotaxine was to plant more plum yews. That’s problematic (Click on title for full story.)
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Native American Herbal Remedy Studied For Alzheimer’s disease Cure
A Salk Institute discovery of a potent neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory chemical in a native California shrub may lead to a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease based on a compound found in nature. (Click on title for full story.)
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This Source Of Disease-Fighting Drugs Is Down To Last Three Trees
Three Chinese fir trees on a nature reserve in Southeastern China are the last of their kind. As their existence is threatened by human disturbance and climate change, researchers are hurrying to learn everything they can about the tree — which might inspire new and more effective ways to treat various cancers. (Click on title for full story.)
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Cannabis Changes Sperm DNA. But What Will That Mean For Users’ Children?
“In terms of what it means for the developing child, we just don’t know,” (Click on title for full story)
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Newly Researched Tea Plant Offers All The Benefits Of Tea Without The Drawbacks Of Caffeine
Stripping away caffeine from tea involves either immersing the leaves in carbon dioxide at extremely high pressure or treating the leaves with searing hot water. Although this will get rid of most of the caffeine, it can cause collateral damage to some of the fragile compounds that give tea its benefits. And, as with decaf coffee, which is treated in similar ways, many people argue that it also spoils the flavour. What would be agreeable is a tea plant that provides all the taste and goodness but with little or none of the caffeine. (Click on title for full story)
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Can This Plant Alleviate Post-Operative Pain And Eliminate Need For Opioids?
But while that toxicity will lay up any mammal dumb enough to chew on the resin spurge, resiniferatoxin has also emerged as a promising painkiller. Inject RTX, as it’s known, into an aching joint, and it’ll actually destroy the nerve endings that signal pain. Which means medicine could soon get a new tool to help free us from the grasp of opioids. (Click on title for full story.)
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The Cure For One Of The Deadliest Cancers May Be Found In An Obscure African Vine
Pancreatic cancer cells are known for their ability to thrive under extreme conditions of low nutrients and oxygen, a trait known in the cancer field as “austerity.” The cells’ remarkable resistance to starvation is one reason why pancreatic cancer is so deadly. Now researchers have identified a compound from a Congolese plant that has strong “antiausterity” potential, making pancreatic cancer cells susceptible to nutrient starvation. (Click on title for full story.)