Re: melafix - kinda off tangent reply

["William Vannerson" <William_Vannerson@ama-assn.org>]

Kathy wrote:
>>We have lots of  medications derived from Herbs/Natural remedies, ...<<

National Geographic has recently published an interesting book on medicines derived from plants.  I bough the book but have not had time to read much past the introduction.  But two themes have stuck in my head already.  

One, identifying the active chemical that has medicinal properties is not easy.  Often there are many variables that can alter the properties of the plants, such as the location of the plant (hillside vs. swamp), or the season, or the time od day of collection, or the collection procedure, or interaction with other plants, which also may vary with all of these factors.  There's a story of a physician who was shown a plant that by a native _medicine man_ in Madigascar that proved efective against some cancer cells in a lab.  But the medicine man got nervious and refused to provide any more samples.  So the researcher collected the plant on his own based upon his own notes he took the first tme.  But that sample tested negative.

Two, because of the above complexities, it's difficult for drug companies to develop new medicines based upon plants.  Even though over 50% of our drugs today where originally derived from plants, only a few dozen new drugs have been introduced from plant research in the past 50 years.  

Most of the original plant derived drugs came into being because of cultural lore.  Throughout the ages, different treatments have been handed down from one generation to the next.  It's from this knowledge that modern medicine has been able to identify which plants to start with.

So aside from the obvious potential loss of resources via deforestation and other environmental destruction, there is also a very real problem of lost knowledge as the old ways are forgotten because of _westernization._

For example, several years ago, Omni (remember that mag?) ran a story of an anthropologist in Peru (I think) that participated in a cerimony where slim from a tree frog was introduced to his blood stream via a cerimonial burn.  He then described a neat hallucinigenic trip.

He sent a sample to the states where they determined that a peptide in the mollicule in the slime had a unique ability to easily cross the blood/bain barrier in our body.  This barrier is a failsafe to protect our brian, but it also inhibits prescribed drugs intended to affect their treatment.  Unfortunately, I don't know the results of that research.

The sad part was that the shahman, who learned to identify the frog and the process, was the last of his line.  His son, as well as the the other young men in his tribe, movedinto the big cities and have no interest in learning the old ways.  So even if the frog's habitat survives, the knowledge will be lost and other unknown potential cures will never be known.

The tie inot the thread (oh, yeah.  Melfix.) is that it may very well have healing properties that cannot be identified without extensive research.  (I wonder if anyone is looking into it for human treatment?)  But may be more effective than broadcast antibiotics we seem very prone to toss into or tanks (I actually don't).  

There's just so much out there that we don't know about.

Bill Vannerson
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/william_vannerson



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