The headline is broadly defensible, but the qualifications matter. Effect sizes vary by population, the strongest claims rest on shorter trials, and credible voices push back on how it's typically framed.
I think that there are plant compounds that have benefit in some pathways in the human body but what's so interesting for me is that when I look deeper into the plant compounds if we look other places in the human body the plant compounds are also doing negative things it's kind of like any pharmaceutical drug
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I think plant molecules are no different and I I push back against the concept of Zeno hormesis a little bit because many of the benefits that that are the purported benefits of plant molecules are things we can also achieve by living well this is kind of the radical life conversation that we had like with the sirtuins and you know better than I if we can activate or we may not know this from experiments whether we can activate sirtuins to the same extent that we can in throws very trial with ketosis but the argument that I make in the book is hey look like if we look hard enough the plant molecules have damaging effects in other places in the body curcumin is another good example they do things that are good but then they also have bad effects so for feign is the same way that and I what I worry about are these collateral side-effects if the beneficial effect is something we can get by living well in the first place right it's kind of ever done in the fact I'll illustrate it quickly with so for fame my listeners have probably heard me say this a million times but so for thing we know is a nice Athiya cyanate we talked a little about this earlier there these molecules have been shown in cell culture to actually make DNA breaks but they also activate the nrf2 pathway in the liver which makes more glutathione and so in short-term studies isothiocyanates do look like they may protect us against DNA damage because of the glutathione that's produced perhaps but the Sephora Thane has this other negative side effect then never told about which is that it inhibits the uptake of iodine at the level of the thyroid and does other negative things in the body kind of because it's like it's this foreign molecule we've never seen it it's all these like molecular side effects to these plant molecules that I worry about curcumin is kind of the same way it does have some efficacy as an anti-inflammatory probably affecting prostaglandin pathways I'm not sure the mechanism is completely known but it also can affect DNA took why some race to and can affect the potassium channel called the herd channel etc etc so that's kind of my push back against though the plant molecules is enormous this is we just need to make sure we're seeing the entire the entirety of what they're doing in the human body because they often have negative side effects elsewhere
there are plant compounds that have benefit in some pathways in the human body but what's so interesting for me is that when i look deeper into the plant compounds if we look other places in the human body the plant compounds are also doing negative things it's kind of like any pharmaceutical drug
if you're going to take a plant compound to effect a physiologic reaction in your body then that's great but understand that that's going to have a side effect like every other pharmaceutical you're going to get at a pharmacy
what's interesting to me is that within the food sphere of thinking people don't really pay attention or don't acknowledge that similar plant compounds chemicals from plants have side effects that we often ignore
we eat a lot of foods especially plant Foods as humans that we're told are health foods but many of the bioactive compounds in there have not been fully examined and are probably quite problematic for humans
i think there is a bias toward thinking if it's in a plant it's healthy and i don't think that's true i think the book is right that that's not necessarily true and i think there are some plant compounds that at least for some people are not so good
I think there is a bias toward thinking if it's in a plant it's healthy and I don't think that's true I think the book is right that that's not necessarily true and I think there are some plant compounds that at least for some people are not so good