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The hope, then, is that when taking something more "natural" as opposed to man-made is that that natural product will inherently contain a wider variety of comp

by Camillo 14y ago

The hope, then, is that when taking something more "natural" as opposed to man-made is that that natural product will inherently contain a wider variety of compounds that taken together create a more potent, but gentle effect on the patient. And why would they? You are pretty much literally assuming an intelligent design behind the mate plant or Meadows's Montmorency cherry juice. But from an evolutionist perspective, what reason is there for a random plant to contain just the right mix of chemicals to produce the most beneficial effects in humans? There is none, of course - except where the plant has been cultivated, that is, subjected to artificial selection. But while farmers can and did select for taste, yield, size, color, how could they select for an ideal balance of chemicals they don't even know about? How could they optimize for medical benefits without double-blind trials, and when most of their harvest is used for other purposes anyway? Why trust an imprecise, blind form of artificiality over a scientific, informed one? By the way, some of the plants more painstakingly selected for human benefit - cereals - are the source of one of the (real or supposed) villains in Meadows's story: gluten. And even more exotic (and therefore appealing) South American plants like the Solanaceae (potato, tomato, eggplant...) contain significant amounts of toxic alkaloids. So much for the harmonious, "gentle" blend of compounds in natural products!

andreasvc 14y ago
Aside from the fact that literally is not a gradable adjective, I don't see the grandparent suggesting any kind of intelligent design. Evolution implies getting adapted to your environment, this includes an oxygen level of roughly 20%, availability of nutrients, etc. But this also goes the other way: plants to some extend need animals to spread their seeds (you could go as far as to say it's the reason for our existence...), so it's to their benefit when they evolve beneficial effects on animal through combinations of nutrients/chemicals]; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-evolution So while there may be a _reason_ the mate plant evolved to have pleasant effects on us, this is not necessarily because there is a design or teleology.
- Camillo 14y ago
  Nobody is arguing against the existance of beneficial compounds in plants. Remember that the claim was that natural products somehow contain the perfect blend of compounds, which is a very high bar to clean. Co-evolution does not imply maximum benefits for all the organisms involved: for example, a plant that wants you to eat its fruit to disperse its seeds may make itself delicious, but it does not really care if it poisons you a little along the way (see the example of the Solanaceae, which I already cited). You should also consider that humans and the mate plant have coexisted for maybe 15 thousand years, which is not really a lot of time to come to a perfectly harmonized balance with the entire ecosystem; and that the average (US) American's ancestors have been around the mate plant for approximately zero generations, so, if they are to benefit from the short period of co-evolution of the plant with humans, it needs to be through changes in the plant (and it seems to me that an animal would evolve to maximize benefit from its food source faster than the food source would evolve to maximize benefit to it). You may then say that the plant co-evolved with animals similar to us, but then, see the comment someone else made about lethal doses being quite different between species. I am not disputing the presence of beneficial compounds in some plants, but the claim that they would somehow contain the perfect blend that maximizes benefit to our particular species. Also, "pretty much" is not a grading adverbial phrase.
smackay 14y ago
The crux of this is that nothing exists in isolation. Humans evolved eating plants and plants evolved trying not to be eaten so a large part of human physiology is probably designed to deal with plant toxins. Any natural product that is potent but gentle is probably just short of being dangerous, it's certainly nothing to do with being not being manufactured. A quick search for dangerous herbs gives a decent list of plant which can have catastrophic effects if eaten. The scientific approach is attempting to unravel all this but we are only at the beginning and it's going to take a long time to figure it all out.
graeme 14y ago
Because the farmers can select for effects, not the reasons for the effects. You've just argued against animal husbandry, by the way.
reasonattlm 14y ago
What evolutionary reason? See here: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/theorizing-more-broadly-on-the-topic-of-the-evolution-of-longevity.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/theorizing-more-b... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299529/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299529/ Various organisms (i.e., bacteria, fungi, plants and animals) within an ecosystem can synthesize and release into the environment certain longevity-extending small molecules. Here we hypothesize that these interspecies chemical signals can create xenohormetic, hormetic and cytostatic selective forces driving the ecosystemic evolution of longevity regulation mechanisms. In our hypothesis, following their release into the environment by one species of the organisms composing an ecosystem, such small molecules can activate anti-aging processes and/or inhibit pro-aging processes in other species within the ecosystem. The organisms that possess the most effective (as compared to their counterparts of the same species) mechanisms for sensing the chemical signals produced and released by other species and for responding to such signals by undergoing certain hormetic and/or cytostatic life-extending changes to their metabolism and physiology are expected to live longer then their counterparts within the ecosystem. Thus, the ability of a species of the organisms composing an ecosystem to undergo life-extending metabolic or physiological changes in response to hormetic or cytostatic chemical compounds released to the ecosystem by other species: 1) increases its chances of survival; 2) creates selective forces aimed at maintaining such ability; and 3) enables the evolution of longevity regulation mechanisms.
- Camillo 14y ago
  That's the saddest paper I've ever seen. Some student did a paper review, tacked on a hypothesis, did no research on it, and came up with something that looks more like a homework assignment than a research paper. Dose Response must have a negative impact factor! Anyway, South America was colonized by humans around 15 millennia ago. Does that look like a reasonable time frame for humans to evolve a positive reaction to the specific blend of chemicals in the mate plant? Does that sound like it would have any impact at all on a white North American child with no indigenous American ancestry? Of course not.
deleted 14y ago
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by Camillo 14y ago

andreasvc 14y ago

Aside from the fact that literally is not a gradable adjective, I don't see the grandparent suggesting any kind of intelligent design. Evolution implies getting adapted to your environment, this includes an oxygen level of roughly 20%, availability of nutrients, etc. But this also goes the other way: plants to some extend need animals to spread their seeds (you could go as far as to say it's the reason for our existence...), so it's to their benefit when they evolve beneficial effects on animal through combinations of nutrients/chemicals]; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-evolution So while there may be a _reason_ the mate plant evolved to have pleasant effects on us, this is not necessarily because there is a design or teleology.

Camillo 14y ago
Nobody is arguing against the existance of beneficial compounds in plants. Remember that the claim was that natural products somehow contain the perfect blend of compounds, which is a very high bar to clean. Co-evolution does not imply maximum benefits for all the organisms involved: for example, a plant that wants you to eat its fruit to disperse its seeds may make itself delicious, but it does not really care if it poisons you a little along the way (see the example of the Solanaceae, which I already cited). You should also consider that humans and the mate plant have coexisted for maybe 15 thousand years, which is not really a lot of time to come to a perfectly harmonized balance with the entire ecosystem; and that the average (US) American's ancestors have been around the mate plant for approximately zero generations, so, if they are to benefit from the short period of co-evolution of the plant with humans, it needs to be through changes in the plant (and it seems to me that an animal would evolve to maximize benefit from its food source faster than the food source would evolve to maximize benefit to it). You may then say that the plant co-evolved with animals similar to us, but then, see the comment someone else made about lethal doses being quite different between species. I am not disputing the presence of beneficial compounds in some plants, but the claim that they would somehow contain the perfect blend that maximizes benefit to our particular species. Also, "pretty much" is not a grading adverbial phrase.

smackay 14y ago

The crux of this is that nothing exists in isolation. Humans evolved eating plants and plants evolved trying not to be eaten so a large part of human physiology is probably designed to deal with plant toxins. Any natural product that is potent but gentle is probably just short of being dangerous, it's certainly nothing to do with being not being manufactured. A quick search for dangerous herbs gives a decent list of plant which can have catastrophic effects if eaten. The scientific approach is attempting to unravel all this but we are only at the beginning and it's going to take a long time to figure it all out.

graeme 14y ago

Because the farmers can select for effects, not the reasons for the effects. You've just argued against animal husbandry, by the way.

reasonattlm 14y ago

What evolutionary reason? See here: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/theorizing-more-broadly-on-the-topic-of-the-evolution-of-longevity.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/theorizing-more-b... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299529/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299529/ Various organisms (i.e., bacteria, fungi, plants and animals) within an ecosystem can synthesize and release into the environment certain longevity-extending small molecules. Here we hypothesize that these interspecies chemical signals can create xenohormetic, hormetic and cytostatic selective forces driving the ecosystemic evolution of longevity regulation mechanisms. In our hypothesis, following their release into the environment by one species of the organisms composing an ecosystem, such small molecules can activate anti-aging processes and/or inhibit pro-aging processes in other species within the ecosystem. The organisms that possess the most effective (as compared to their counterparts of the same species) mechanisms for sensing the chemical signals produced and released by other species and for responding to such signals by undergoing certain hormetic and/or cytostatic life-extending changes to their metabolism and physiology are expected to live longer then their counterparts within the ecosystem. Thus, the ability of a species of the organisms composing an ecosystem to undergo life-extending metabolic or physiological changes in response to hormetic or cytostatic chemical compounds released to the ecosystem by other species: 1) increases its chances of survival; 2) creates selective forces aimed at maintaining such ability; and 3) enables the evolution of longevity regulation mechanisms.

Camillo 14y ago
That's the saddest paper I've ever seen. Some student did a paper review, tacked on a hypothesis, did no research on it, and came up with something that looks more like a homework assignment than a research paper. Dose Response must have a negative impact factor! Anyway, South America was colonized by humans around 15 millennia ago. Does that look like a reasonable time frame for humans to evolve a positive reaction to the specific blend of chemicals in the mate plant? Does that sound like it would have any impact at all on a white North American child with no indigenous American ancestry? Of course not.

deleted 14y ago

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