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Essay on "Promise of Plants"
by Aubrey Weese

A discussion of the article The Promise of Plants by Joel L. Swerdlow, which was published in The Washington Post on September 19, 2000

Summary

The Promise of Plants by Joel L. Swerdlow is an appeal to the scientific community and the general public to not forget about the value of plant based medicine in the face of new biotechnology, like the mapping of the human genome. The article says that modern medicine largely stopped looking at plants as sources of new medicine after it developed the capability to manipulate chemicals and manufacture synthetic drugs. The focus shifted to drugs with a single active ingredient, because they were easy to discover and patent, and plants were discarded because they were too complex.

However, the author says it is this very complexity that makes plants so useful. As scientists map the human genome they are discovering that usually not just one gene causes a disease, instead they are caused by many genes and the respective proteins they code for, working together. The body naturally calls for medicines with many active ingredients working together to combat the complex causes of disease. Plants are a logical place to look for these kinds of medicines, because of their common evolutionary ancestry with humans millions of years ago. Many of the defenses that plants have developed against the hazards of their environments, such as viruses and bacteria, are also helpful to humans. The author hopes that advances in the mapping of the human genome and plant genomes will actually lead us back to discover many new medicines based on plants.

Library Research

For my library research I decided to go into one specific scenario of how mapping the human genome could lead to the use of plant based medicines.

An early genetic marker that has already been discovered in the human genome is the gene IL-1. This marker was discovered by Interleukin Genetics, Inc., and has been linked to heart disease and heart attacks. IL-1 is one of the controlling factors in the body's inflammatory response to injury. It plays a role in determining heart attacks because individuals who get atherosclerosis (plaque accumulation in the arteries) are more likely to have a heart attack if their arteries become inflamed. Many people with certain variations of this gene can have sudden surprise heart attacks even though they have none of the risk factors commonly associated with heart disease: smoking, obesity, high cholesterol, or a family history of heart disease. Studies have shown that individuals with these variations are 2.0 - 3.9 times more likely to develop heart disease (Anonymous, 2000).

Interleukin is currently doing further research and may ultimately turn up more genes that work together with this one to increase the risk of heat disease. Scientists also hope to develop gene therapy medicines that will target the IL-1 marker. In as little as a year a test may be available to screen for the gene, in the hopes that it will prompt those who have the condition to take measures to better care for their cardiovascular health and prevent future heart attacks (Anonymous, 2000).

This is where plant based medicine comes in. One of the things those individuals who were diagnosed with this genetic condition could do is take hawthorn supplements. Hawthorn (Crataegus oxyacantha) is a spiny shrub native to temperate forests in Northern Europe, and North and West Africa (Grieve, 1931). It has been known to be good for the health of the heart ever sense the first century AD when it was reported by Greek herbalist Dioscorides, although its first clinical uses for heart disease did not begin until the nineteenth century in Europe (Blumenthal, 1998). The leaf, flower, and berry of the plant all have medicinal properties.

The herb is the most beneficial in the early stages of heart disease, those stages where patients are comfortable at rest and do not have limitations on physical activity (Blumenthal, 1998). This would most likely be the stage that people who are screened for this gene are in, having no outward symptoms of heart disease.

Hawthorn has been tested in several double blind tests and has been shown to be significantly better than a placebo as a therapy for congestive heart failure and angina, improving blood pressure, heart endurance, heart rate, stress tolerance, and oxygen delivery to the heart muscle. A study has also been done that shows that hawthorn extract (at a dosage of 900 mg per day) performs just as well as the commercial cardiac drug Captopril (37.5 mg per day). Captopril is used to reduce resistance to blood flow in arteries. Hawthorn extract worked just as well at doing this with the added benefit that it also worked on the heart itself (Blumenthal, 1998).

Hawthorn seems an ideal supplement for people with the IL-1 gene risk factor to try, especially because it has been found to be a very safe herb with no known risks to humans. If the condition is more serious, the herb has also been shown to work well in combination with conventional cardiovascular medicines (Blumenthal, 1998).

Reasons and Reactions

I chose this article because I wanted to find an article about genetics that wasn't about cloning or genetic engineering, as I had just written a ten page paper about cloning for my English class last semester and was completely tired of the subject. This article was still about genetics but with the unique plant based medicine twist that kept it interesting to me. I learned a lot of reasons why herbal medicine is beneficial to humans from reading this article. I take herbal remedies more seriously now after having read the article than I did before. Taking this science class has increased my understanding of how genes and DNA works, which helped me to better understand what this article and my research articles were talking about when they discussed the mapping of the human genome.

Bibliography

Anonymous. (2000). New Genetic Marker For Heart Disease Discovered. American Nutraceutical Association [On-line], 8 paragraphs. Available: http://www.americanutra.com/press.html#new-genetic-marker [Accessed 2000, Nov 12]

Blumenthal, M. (1998). Hawthorn Leaf with Flower. In Busse, W.R., A. Goldberg, J. Gruenwald, T. Hall, and C.W. Riggins (eds.), The Complete German Commission E Monographs--Therapeutic Guide to Herbal Medicines, American Botanical Council, Austin Texas.

Grieve, M. (1971). A Modern Herbal. Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

Swerdlow, J.L. The Promise of Plants. The Washington Post, September 19, 2000.

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