6 ms·

It means there has to be so many other undiscovered use of things that only the old and experienced know about. How about herbal medicine? Other household reme

It means there has to be so many other undiscovered use of things that only the old and experienced know about. How about herbal medicine? Other household remedies? How about these things from a very different living environment and culture? I believe we shouldn't just dismiss the old remedies and other tricks.

guram11 6y ago
like snake oil ?
- Ovah 6y ago
  "A full 40 percent of the drugs behind the pharmacist’s counter in the Western world are derived from plants that people have used for centuries, including the top 20 best selling prescription drugs in the United States today. For example, quinine extracted from the bark of the South American cinchona tree (Cinchona calisaya) relieves malaria, and licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra) has been an ingredient in cough drops for more than 3,500 years." https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/medicinal/index.shtml https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/medicinal/inde...
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Medical errors are the third leading cause of death. We like to imagine we’ve come a long way from treating ghosts in your blood with cocaine, but we haven’t. https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139 https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139
    - gowld 6y ago
      That's a very misleading summary. "Leading causes of death could be prevented by more perfect medical response" is a better summary.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - teh_infallible 6y ago
        “Leading causes of death” being medical incompetence, which is the third largest cause of death in the US
  - rmah 6y ago
    A full 100% of the drugs sold today are manufactured using only ingredients found in nature! <sarcasm>
    - Ovah 6y ago
      (I'm aware of the sarcasm tag). Technically that 100% should be 99.999%. Not all drugs are found in nature. Technetium, a man-made compound, is used in some radiology. https://go.drugbank.com/categories/DBCAT001978 https://go.drugbank.com/categories/DBCAT001978
      - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
        No, technetium is still a natural product, it just takes a little processing. An organic miner dug up some raw uranium ore, then someone refined it, irradiated it, and isolated the resulting molybdenum-99, and finally a radiologist extracts the all-natural technetium from the decay process of that molybdenum.
        qwertywert_ 6y ago
        Natural = found in nature.
        simplify 6y ago
        You can argue that, and I might agree with it, but it's not regulated as such.
        LeifCarrotson 5y ago
        It is found in nature, it just has a slightly different number of protons when it's raw.
        qwertywert_ 5y ago
        I know what you mean, but it's just the definition of natural at least on our "earth". If you find some technetium somewhere let me know.
- burkaman 6y ago
  "we shouldn't dismiss" means we should try them and see if they work, not just automatically assume they work or automatically dismiss them as snake oil.
s_dev 6y ago
>I believe we shouldn't just dismiss the old remedies and other tricks. We test many of those remedies and tricks with a formal method. The ones that work further science and our collective understanding. The ones that don't are relegated as old wives tales. Even the article narrows in on this correctly. >Alcantar told her postdoc about this, and because they didn’t have a lab, directed him to try “a quick and dirty experiment.” >“Two days later he came back and said ‘Yeah, it worked,’” she said.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Yes I agree, the ones that work are packaged, labeled and sold at a high profit as Pharmaceuticals.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Typically, the ones that work are quickly synthesized and a method that can be patented is developed. Then the plant is scheduled and kept illegal so that you have to pay the pharma for something that grows naturally.
    - SomaticPirate 6y ago
      I'm always surprised by the vitriol directed at Biotech on HN. Isolating and enhancing the effect of a natural substance along with ensuring dosage typically requires quite a large amount of engineering effort. Why shouldn't that be patented? I think we can all agree that swallowing a tablet of aspirin is better than extracting your own from a willow tree.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        There's lots of things to not like about big pharma. How much money has big pharama spent on lobbying congress to keep certain plants scheduled so they can maintain their stockholders? The stories on big pharma and their role in the opioid crisis, stories on big pharma pricing structures that are not the same depending on who/where you are even though there's no difference in the pill. The agressive nature of pill pushing (even non-opiods) on doctors. The aggressive nature of advertising to desperate patients to pressure their doctors to prescribe medication that won't actually help but may worsen situations.
pvaldes 6y ago
Saponins are a well known type of substances. It was created as predators deterrent but we can use if as predator's detergent. There is even a tree that bears soap berries, so you don't need to kill any poor cactus or use animal fat for that. First course of plant physiology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/saponins https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology...
RandallBrown 6y ago
Q: Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? A: Medecine. I think many old remedies have been tested and then get refined to work better. Willow bark was used for thousands of years as pain relief but now those chemicals found in the bark have been refined into aspirin.
- monkeybutton 6y ago
  The example from folk medicine I like is Ergot. It comes from a fungus, was used by midwives for hundreds of years, and scientists investigating its derivatives in the late 30s / early 40s is what lead to LSD's discovery.
M_bara 6y ago
I have an uncle in his 70s. The other day he gave me some shrubbery to chew on coz of a toothache. I was like yeah-yeah let me humour him. Shock on me! The thing worked! Numbs the pain. In fact, any part of the tongue had a numbed feeling similar to the feeling you get when the dentist injects you.. I believe there’s probably a lot one can learn from the connected with nature older folks
- dr_orpheus 6y ago
  And we likely have learned from this! The plant likely had something like Menthol (from various mint) or Eugenol (clove, nutmeg, basil, etc) [0]. Both of these are examples of items where we found and isolated the compounds responsible for the desirable effects. Both of these are used as mild local anesthetics. Or he gave you some coca leaves to chew on since cocaine was one of the first really strong local anesthetics. A lot modern anesthetics are synthesized but based on the structure of cocaine, but without that pesky drug addiction and nasty side effects. This includes lidocaine, which what they do typically use at the dentist. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_anesthetic#Naturally_derived https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_anesthetic#Naturally_der...
spoonjim 6y ago
Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for rediscovering artemisinin, a anti-malaria treatment, from a 1,600-year-old text and scientifically formalizing it. The medical handbook that first describes the formula (including the fact that you need to use low-temperature water) was written in the year 340. That's not a typo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge_Hong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge_Hong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou

guram11 6y ago

like snake oil ?

Ovah 6y ago
"A full 40 percent of the drugs behind the pharmacist’s counter in the Western world are derived from plants that people have used for centuries, including the top 20 best selling prescription drugs in the United States today. For example, quinine extracted from the bark of the South American cinchona tree (Cinchona calisaya) relieves malaria, and licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra) has been an ingredient in cough drops for more than 3,500 years." https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/medicinal/index.shtml https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/medicinal/inde...
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  Medical errors are the third leading cause of death. We like to imagine we’ve come a long way from treating ghosts in your blood with cocaine, but we haven’t. https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139 https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139
  - gowld 6y ago
    That's a very misleading summary. "Leading causes of death could be prevented by more perfect medical response" is a better summary.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - teh_infallible 6y ago
      “Leading causes of death” being medical incompetence, which is the third largest cause of death in the US
- rmah 6y ago
  A full 100% of the drugs sold today are manufactured using only ingredients found in nature! <sarcasm>
  - Ovah 6y ago
    (I'm aware of the sarcasm tag). Technically that 100% should be 99.999%. Not all drugs are found in nature. Technetium, a man-made compound, is used in some radiology. https://go.drugbank.com/categories/DBCAT001978 https://go.drugbank.com/categories/DBCAT001978
    - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
      No, technetium is still a natural product, it just takes a little processing. An organic miner dug up some raw uranium ore, then someone refined it, irradiated it, and isolated the resulting molybdenum-99, and finally a radiologist extracts the all-natural technetium from the decay process of that molybdenum.
      - qwertywert_ 6y ago
        Natural = found in nature.
        simplify 6y ago
        You can argue that, and I might agree with it, but it's not regulated as such.
        LeifCarrotson 5y ago
        It is found in nature, it just has a slightly different number of protons when it's raw.
        qwertywert_ 5y ago
        I know what you mean, but it's just the definition of natural at least on our "earth". If you find some technetium somewhere let me know.
burkaman 6y ago
"we shouldn't dismiss" means we should try them and see if they work, not just automatically assume they work or automatically dismiss them as snake oil.

s_dev 6y ago

>I believe we shouldn't just dismiss the old remedies and other tricks. We test many of those remedies and tricks with a formal method. The ones that work further science and our collective understanding. The ones that don't are relegated as old wives tales. Even the article narrows in on this correctly. >Alcantar told her postdoc about this, and because they didn’t have a lab, directed him to try “a quick and dirty experiment.” >“Two days later he came back and said ‘Yeah, it worked,’” she said.

tartoran 6y ago
Yes I agree, the ones that work are packaged, labeled and sold at a high profit as Pharmaceuticals.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Typically, the ones that work are quickly synthesized and a method that can be patented is developed. Then the plant is scheduled and kept illegal so that you have to pay the pharma for something that grows naturally.
  - SomaticPirate 6y ago
    I'm always surprised by the vitriol directed at Biotech on HN. Isolating and enhancing the effect of a natural substance along with ensuring dosage typically requires quite a large amount of engineering effort. Why shouldn't that be patented? I think we can all agree that swallowing a tablet of aspirin is better than extracting your own from a willow tree.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      There's lots of things to not like about big pharma. How much money has big pharama spent on lobbying congress to keep certain plants scheduled so they can maintain their stockholders? The stories on big pharma and their role in the opioid crisis, stories on big pharma pricing structures that are not the same depending on who/where you are even though there's no difference in the pill. The agressive nature of pill pushing (even non-opiods) on doctors. The aggressive nature of advertising to desperate patients to pressure their doctors to prescribe medication that won't actually help but may worsen situations.

pvaldes 6y ago

Saponins are a well known type of substances. It was created as predators deterrent but we can use if as predator's detergent. There is even a tree that bears soap berries, so you don't need to kill any poor cactus or use animal fat for that. First course of plant physiology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/saponins https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology...

RandallBrown 6y ago

Q: Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? A: Medecine. I think many old remedies have been tested and then get refined to work better. Willow bark was used for thousands of years as pain relief but now those chemicals found in the bark have been refined into aspirin.

monkeybutton 6y ago
The example from folk medicine I like is Ergot. It comes from a fungus, was used by midwives for hundreds of years, and scientists investigating its derivatives in the late 30s / early 40s is what lead to LSD's discovery.

M_bara 6y ago

I have an uncle in his 70s. The other day he gave me some shrubbery to chew on coz of a toothache. I was like yeah-yeah let me humour him. Shock on me! The thing worked! Numbs the pain. In fact, any part of the tongue had a numbed feeling similar to the feeling you get when the dentist injects you.. I believe there’s probably a lot one can learn from the connected with nature older folks

dr_orpheus 6y ago
And we likely have learned from this! The plant likely had something like Menthol (from various mint) or Eugenol (clove, nutmeg, basil, etc) [0]. Both of these are examples of items where we found and isolated the compounds responsible for the desirable effects. Both of these are used as mild local anesthetics. Or he gave you some coca leaves to chew on since cocaine was one of the first really strong local anesthetics. A lot modern anesthetics are synthesized but based on the structure of cocaine, but without that pesky drug addiction and nasty side effects. This includes lidocaine, which what they do typically use at the dentist. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_anesthetic#Naturally_derived https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_anesthetic#Naturally_der...

spoonjim 6y ago

Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for rediscovering artemisinin, a anti-malaria treatment, from a 1,600-year-old text and scientifically formalizing it. The medical handbook that first describes the formula (including the fact that you need to use low-temperature water) was written in the year 340. That's not a typo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge_Hong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge_Hong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou