My immediate supervisor (Ph.D. Chemistry) and the director of our Mass Spectrometry Lab (Ph.D. Chemistry) asked me (M.S. Biochemistry) to write a grant investigating holistic remedies. During a discussion one day about herbal remedies, they wondered how to come to scientific conclusions about those claims and then came to me, seeing as how I studied plant secondary metabolites in graduate school.
The horrible little secret is that by and large the human body bears responsibility for abrogating itself any perturbation to the natural order. Despite our advances, man remains incapable of creating anything that directly countermands the effects of viral, fungal, and parasite attack. By the same measure, nothing we provide directly fights abiotic attack (temperature, pressure, gravitational forces, etc.) either. Over time, our bodies acclimate to the new conditions using the materials we provide them. Some bodies do better than others, due in part I think to the availability of certain accessory cofactors provided by consumption.
One of the most potent secondary metabolites of interest I studied is resveratrol. Resveratrol is claimed to be among the most potent antioxidants, but when chemically synthesized in a laboratory proves to be bio-inactive. Our lab hypothesized that under abiotic stress, resveratrol production would increase, so as to mitigate the adverse effects of the stress. The wine industry paid particular interest to this research, as primary resveratrol production and consumption is part of the grape industry.
Despite their hopes and our expectations, but logical and reasonable, abiotic stress increased 50-fold resveratrol in leaves and shoots but only 2-fold in the berries. When you’re measuring in ppb, a 2-fold increase is not necessarily statistically significant. However, it is useful, if you plan to eat leaves.
In addition to those compounds, we identified about 100 other compounds, many of which remain unidentified as to their exact nature and function, that changed in concentration significantly under the same conditions. Chances are, some of them serve a role either passively as antioxidants like resveratrol or as cofactors in other reactions. I suspect they either lower activation energy or increase efficiency for processes already possible in the body.
Nobody seems interested in testing plants to find out what it is exactly that makes them useful to the body. Most of the herbal supplements are not supported by the FDA, meaning there are no scientific studies linking any components to human health. That doesn’t mean they’re not there. It means everyone’s too lazy to do anything useful.
The other possibility is that they fear what they might find. When we presented our resveratrol findings at the ASEV conference in 2003, we also presented a report on ethyl-carbamate. In the presence of alcohol, and under sufficient heat, unfiltered amino acids and proteins floating in wine perform a nucleophilic reaction that creates the ethyl-carbamate carcinogen. Since wine is typically made in summer, transported by truckers and sold by winebibbers, in the chain of custody, the marginal propensity indicates that at some point during the chain from vine to table the wine has breached the 70ºF threshold to initiate this substitution reaction.
We took our wine and some random samples from a liquor store and tested them for ethyl-carbamate. Almost without exception, of our ten varieties and of the four store varieties, every vintage contained 80%+ of the legal limit for ethyl-carbamate content of 100ng/ml. By contrast, beer usually has 10ng/ml and cognac 500ng/ml. This is why sherry and cognac (which are heated during processing) are not made in the U.S.
So, they sell you on wine for its ability to fight atherosclerosis and as an antioxidant, but our studies show that ethyl-carbamate content mitigates any protective effect found in the average glass. They are right to fear what they might find. What we don’t know is killing us.
The horrible little secret is that by and large the human body bears responsibility for abrogating itself any perturbation to the natural order. Despite our advances, man remains incapable of creating anything that directly countermands the effects of viral, fungal, and parasite attack. By the same measure, nothing we provide directly fights abiotic attack (temperature, pressure, gravitational forces, etc.) either. Over time, our bodies acclimate to the new conditions using the materials we provide them. Some bodies do better than others, due in part I think to the availability of certain accessory cofactors provided by consumption.
One of the most potent secondary metabolites of interest I studied is resveratrol. Resveratrol is claimed to be among the most potent antioxidants, but when chemically synthesized in a laboratory proves to be bio-inactive. Our lab hypothesized that under abiotic stress, resveratrol production would increase, so as to mitigate the adverse effects of the stress. The wine industry paid particular interest to this research, as primary resveratrol production and consumption is part of the grape industry.
Despite their hopes and our expectations, but logical and reasonable, abiotic stress increased 50-fold resveratrol in leaves and shoots but only 2-fold in the berries. When you’re measuring in ppb, a 2-fold increase is not necessarily statistically significant. However, it is useful, if you plan to eat leaves.
In addition to those compounds, we identified about 100 other compounds, many of which remain unidentified as to their exact nature and function, that changed in concentration significantly under the same conditions. Chances are, some of them serve a role either passively as antioxidants like resveratrol or as cofactors in other reactions. I suspect they either lower activation energy or increase efficiency for processes already possible in the body.
Nobody seems interested in testing plants to find out what it is exactly that makes them useful to the body. Most of the herbal supplements are not supported by the FDA, meaning there are no scientific studies linking any components to human health. That doesn’t mean they’re not there. It means everyone’s too lazy to do anything useful.
The other possibility is that they fear what they might find. When we presented our resveratrol findings at the ASEV conference in 2003, we also presented a report on ethyl-carbamate. In the presence of alcohol, and under sufficient heat, unfiltered amino acids and proteins floating in wine perform a nucleophilic reaction that creates the ethyl-carbamate carcinogen. Since wine is typically made in summer, transported by truckers and sold by winebibbers, in the chain of custody, the marginal propensity indicates that at some point during the chain from vine to table the wine has breached the 70ºF threshold to initiate this substitution reaction.
We took our wine and some random samples from a liquor store and tested them for ethyl-carbamate. Almost without exception, of our ten varieties and of the four store varieties, every vintage contained 80%+ of the legal limit for ethyl-carbamate content of 100ng/ml. By contrast, beer usually has 10ng/ml and cognac 500ng/ml. This is why sherry and cognac (which are heated during processing) are not made in the U.S.
So, they sell you on wine for its ability to fight atherosclerosis and as an antioxidant, but our studies show that ethyl-carbamate content mitigates any protective effect found in the average glass. They are right to fear what they might find. What we don’t know is killing us.
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