AN INSIGHT INTO THE CURIOUS WORLD OF ETHNOBOTANY
Editor's Note: In the following article, Mitchell B. ('16) describes his introduction into Ethnobotany field.
On one particularly mundane day last summer, my mother and I decided to visit the New York Botanical Gardens. The Gardens, lush and beautiful as always, had an exhibit on ethnobotany, the study of the medicinal values of plants. As I perused the exhibit, I was confounded by how some edible plants could perform wonders such as helping to treat Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). I had already signed up for the Science Research course but didn’t know what to study, that experience made my decision. I decided to study ethnobotany.
As I learned about the field of ethnobotany, I found that the field relied heavily on the work of shamans in remote villages of third world countries. Ethnobotanists spend months in these villages gaining the knowledge and trust of these shamans. One story that I remember distinctly was described by Michael J. Balick, a very well respected ethnobotanist that works in the New York Botanical Gardens. In a South American village, he recalls a time when a person with diabetes came to the shaman. The shaman gave the person a mixture to drink for the next few days, when the person returned the diabetes had disappeared. Anyhow, if the ethnobotanists are able to extract a plant from there excursion, it is sent to labs to test it. This is the part of the field I will be working in and have studied.
I studied a paper entitled Phenolic-rich extract from the Costa Rican guava (Psidium friedrichsthalianum) pulp with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity. Potential for COPD therapy. COPD, is typically caused by cigarette smoke which leads to the damaging of cells and swelling of the bronchioles which make it difficult to breath. The two chemicals that are culpable of this are matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) and interleukin-8 (IL-8), both of these chemicals cause oxidation in cells. When cells oxidize, they can cause other parts of the body to function poorly; this is one thing that often times lead to cancer. Costa Rican Guava is a superfruit that is typically consumed as a juice or spread. Previous papers have shown that they help combat cancer, heart disease and liver damage among other things. Most importantly for this paper, the guava has shown antioxidant qualities. So in this experiment, their goal was to find if the guava had antioxidant qualities. They did this by separating the guava into different partitions and testing those partitions for their antioxidant constituency through ABTS and DPPH assays. These are chemicals of the same ilk as MMP-1 and IL-8, so the effectiveness of each partition depends on how much ABTS and DPPH dissipates. One partition, one defined by ethyl acetate (because that was the chemical used for separating one of the partitions), had a very high effectiveness. Due to this, the partition was tested directly for its effectiveness in inhibiting the production of IL-8 and MMP-1. It was very effective. After this, they deciphered what chemicals were in the partition. The scientists are skeptical about how practical using these chemicals would be but have promised to investigate this further. Although it was very difficult to understand this paper, it was incredibly rewarding when I did.
As I learned about the field of ethnobotany, I found that the field relied heavily on the work of shamans in remote villages of third world countries. Ethnobotanists spend months in these villages gaining the knowledge and trust of these shamans. One story that I remember distinctly was described by Michael J. Balick, a very well respected ethnobotanist that works in the New York Botanical Gardens. In a South American village, he recalls a time when a person with diabetes came to the shaman. The shaman gave the person a mixture to drink for the next few days, when the person returned the diabetes had disappeared. Anyhow, if the ethnobotanists are able to extract a plant from there excursion, it is sent to labs to test it. This is the part of the field I will be working in and have studied.
I studied a paper entitled Phenolic-rich extract from the Costa Rican guava (Psidium friedrichsthalianum) pulp with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity. Potential for COPD therapy. COPD, is typically caused by cigarette smoke which leads to the damaging of cells and swelling of the bronchioles which make it difficult to breath. The two chemicals that are culpable of this are matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) and interleukin-8 (IL-8), both of these chemicals cause oxidation in cells. When cells oxidize, they can cause other parts of the body to function poorly; this is one thing that often times lead to cancer. Costa Rican Guava is a superfruit that is typically consumed as a juice or spread. Previous papers have shown that they help combat cancer, heart disease and liver damage among other things. Most importantly for this paper, the guava has shown antioxidant qualities. So in this experiment, their goal was to find if the guava had antioxidant qualities. They did this by separating the guava into different partitions and testing those partitions for their antioxidant constituency through ABTS and DPPH assays. These are chemicals of the same ilk as MMP-1 and IL-8, so the effectiveness of each partition depends on how much ABTS and DPPH dissipates. One partition, one defined by ethyl acetate (because that was the chemical used for separating one of the partitions), had a very high effectiveness. Due to this, the partition was tested directly for its effectiveness in inhibiting the production of IL-8 and MMP-1. It was very effective. After this, they deciphered what chemicals were in the partition. The scientists are skeptical about how practical using these chemicals would be but have promised to investigate this further. Although it was very difficult to understand this paper, it was incredibly rewarding when I did.
