Health is Everything™
Health is Everything™
Dr. Cassandra Quave: Enhancing Immune Health
Dr. Cassandra L. Quave is an Ethnobotanist, Herbarium Curator and Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology and the Center for the Study of Human Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Quave is widely regarded for her research into the potential of indigenous, plant-based medicines to treat infectious disease and to combat antibiotic resistance. Join us as we focus on the food-medicine continuum and the potential of plant-based diets for enhancing immune health in the age of COVID 19.
Featuring:
Dr. Cassandra L. Quave, Ethnobotanist, Herbarium Curator, Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology and the Center for the Study of Human Health at Emory University
Host:
Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University
About Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health:
The Emory Center for the Study of Human Health was developed to expand health knowledge and translate this knowledge to all aspects of life – for the individual and populations as a whole. The Center assembles the extraordinary faculty, researchers and thought leaders from across disciplines, departments, schools and institutions to bring this knowledge to Emory University students and inspire them to become leaders for the next generation in meeting challenges facing human health.
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Charles Raison:Hi, this is Dr. Charles raison. I'm a psychiatrist and research scientist and you're listening to health is everything. Your podcast from the Emory university center for the study of human health. My guest today is dr Cassandra Quaive who is an assistant professor in dermatology and human health at Emory university and the curator of the Emery herbarium herbarium. Cassandra, nice to talk to you. It's great to talk to you. All right, so we got to start. I got to ask you, what's an herbarium? Am I even saying it right?
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. Well, um, an herbarium is a great a place for people with a Brown thumb because we have no living plants there. So, um, it's a collection, much like a museum collection that has plants that have been collected all over the world and press to paper and they're documented and stored and if properly cared for these specimens can last centuries. And we have over 23,000 such specimens in the herbarium at Emory.
Charles Raison:Well, and, and so what I've heard about, there's like banks of seeds and things that they're building under glaciers. And stuff. And Scandinavia writes this sort of the same idea.
Cassandra Quave:It's, it's, it's in the same kind of bucket of, of botanical research. Yeah. So seed banking is, is especially important today as we see loss of biodiversity. Um, we don't do any seed banking at the herbarium, but what we do collect are, um, medicinal and, uh, wild food plants for documentation, um, before they occur in the wild. We also collect lots of other types of plants.
Charles Raison:Well, and, and so they, they're, they're dry distort and ways that can last a long period of time. You clip a little bit of the sample off or something like that at a certain point, try to understand what it's made of or what it does.
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. So, I mean, if you can imagine going back even several centuries to when explorers were traveling to exotic places like the Americas and looking for new and interesting herbs and ingredients for medicine and for food or for fiber, um, they would always have a ships, botanist on board. And those botanists would use some simple tools like Clippers, um, plant presses, which are basically strips of wood that are lightweight. And you basically can, uh, press the plants between these strips of wood. Today we use cardboard to kind of separate the plants and the idea is to take something that's in flower or fruit. So it shows us its reproductive parts and that enables us to get a correct botanical identification of the plant. And these are really important because it shows us exactly where different plant species occur in the wild, in different parts of the world and when they're flowering or fruiting. Um, and that's really important also in understanding and tracking climate change, um, for plants.
Charles Raison:Okay. Tell us a little bit just if you can give us an overview. You're an ethnobotanist. What does that mean and what do you, you know, what do you work on?
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. So ethnobotany is a scientific study of the relationships that people have with plants. And so if you can envision any possible way that a plant might be be used, we're using plants right now. If you're wearing a cotton shirt, um, that's made of plant material. The desk that you're sitting at is made of certain types of wood that are better for furniture making. Um, we also of course use plants as sources of food, um, as sources of medicine, um, and many other purposes. So, uh, that's really what ethnobotany is about. My area of subspecialty within ethnobotany is medical ethnobotany. So I'm very interested in plants that people use to, um, treat different medical conditions. And it may come as a surprise, but in many parts of the world, especially in the developing world, um, plants actually form the foundation of the local pharmacopeia and, um, 70 to 95% Senator it people in many of these countries rely on plants as their primary form of medicine.
Charles Raison:Wow. And how many of those plants would sort of pass muster, I guess if you were to put them in a randomized clinical trial, do we, do we know?
Cassandra Quave:Yeah, that's it. That's a great question. Um, well we do know that there are over 28,000 species of plants that have been documented as being used in human medicine. Out of those, the numbers that we've really rigorously examined through Western science, through laboratory studies or animal studies or even human clinical trials is pretty low. So one of the things that I'm really passionate about is raising awareness of this because there's a great need to not only look to these plants as potential sources of new medicines, um, to bring to all of mankind, but also to validate and that evaluate the safety and efficacy of these species that people are using on a regular basis for their own medical care.
Charles Raison:And I think people don't always realize how many of our medicines in fact come from plants, right? That they're a large producer, that evolutionary processes, Mmm. Drive plants to produce substances for their own purposes, that that sometimes are hugely valuable. I mean penicillin was a mold, wasn't it? Or something produced by molds to fight off bacteria. So interesting. But then you're right. I guess that if people are using these widely, um, it's in the public health interest to try to understand, you know, do they work in, are they safe as plants? Not as something that you try to extract medicine from.
Cassandra Quave:Well actually they are extracting them as medicines, not through the kind of elaborate processes that would we would use in a pharmaceutical factory, but they're making teas and that's a kind of water extract or they're steeping them in alcohol and pulling out the chemistry that way. So in traditional medicine, what you find often instead of a single compound kind of therapy, um, you have hundreds of molecules that are found even in a single plant tissue, like even in a set of leaves. And those in some cases can even work through a process we call synergism, which basically, um, refers to the ability of certain molecules to work together to yield an even greater effect.
Charles Raison:Interesting. Yeah. Which of course is very different than how we tend to do our medicines in the Western world. I mean, for some things like we add cancel regiments are often synergistic. Um, you know, I'm a psychiatrist by training and although we are kind of way out ahead of our data, I guess we often, sometimes we'll combine medicines for people. Mmm[inaudible] don't respond to one. Although this must make studying plants kind of a challenge, right? If you've got lots and lots of different sort of, you know, chemicals within a plant, how do you,
Cassandra Quave:how do you, yeah. Yeah. How do you do that? Well, I like to say that my, my research group is really good at finding needles in mass of haystacks because that's kind of what we're working with. There are these very, very complex mixtures and we even keep it simple to the point where we're not looking at certain systems of medicine, for example, like Ayurvedic medicine or traditional Chinese medicine where they actually commonly combine many different species in the medical formulation. Right now in the lab, we're primarily focused on looking at single plant ingredients. So even a single, like I said, a leaf tissue could have hundreds of different molecules present. And so we're starting there, but certainly my hope is that in the future, um, as we get more and more, uh, sophisticated chemistry tools, um, out and in use in, in, in the research community, that it will better enable us to look more closely at these very complex networks between species.
Charles Raison:Yeah. Um, well, and it's interesting, you know, you talk about, um, all the things that plants provide us, you're the one that taught me this phrase that there's a food medicine continuum.
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. I'll be talking about that a little bit. Yeah. So the food medicine continuum is, is a major topic that kind of falls throughout the full flow of my course that I teach at Emory. It's called food health and society, where we really get into the, um, history, the science and the culture around food and how it connects to our health. Um, not every food is made equal obviously. Um, we know that our foods, especially processed food is, are going to contain different types of molecules that could in fact have harmful effects on our health. And then you could also say the same for certain plant ingredients if there are certain toxic elements present. And so the food medicine continuum is all about understanding that interrelationship on the scale of food and medicine. Take for example, something as simple as a banana. So just this morning I enjoyed a banana as part of my breakfast, but let's say Hey, that and that in that context I'm consuming it as a food. Let's say though that one of my children is suffering from diarrhea. Bananas are known to help with treating diarrhea. So I might feed it to them in that context to act as something to help treat the diarrhea. And so the food medicine continuum is not just about the pharmacological values of our foods, but also how we relate with them and how we use them under specific context. And there are many, many other examples to that effect. There are a lot of foods that we use commonly as spices to flavor our foods that also have a lot of medicinal properties. Um, and so a lot of this is due to the high levels of compounds known as flavonoids and polyphenols. These are molecules that tend to have, um, very strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects because of their chemical makeup. And so integration of those it's types of molecules into your diet can help in balancing kind of the level of inflammation in your body. And this is known as taking exogenous antioxidants since the diet or antioxidants that come from the outside rather than those that your body makes because your body also makes antioxidants.
Charles Raison:And as KA saw, curcumin I know has been studied actually at Emory, which, which is a base in, in sort of Indian cooking of the, that particular taste that I personally love so much. What are some other examples of foods that sort of tend to have this, this sort of antioxidant anti-inflammatory. So basically that they, they, they, we tarred processes in the body that can be very viable for fighting infection, but can also damage the tissue of the body. Right? I mean, that's,
Cassandra Quave:yeah, I mean that's, you hit on a really good point. So, you know, some inflammation is important in our ability to defend, um, against different infectious processes. Um, but curcumin is a great examples. Curcumin is from a plant that's found in the ginger family. It's known as turmeric. It's this beautiful orange, yellow color. I love to add turmeric powder to rice to make yellow rice. It adds a lot of pretty color to your rice. Um, but what's fascinating about this is we know that curcumin and other Kirk humanoid type compounds found in a plant work on a pathway known as the NF Kappa B pathway. And this, you can think of this pathway as kind of an inflammatory cascade pathway. Now, there are challenges when it comes to curcumin itself as the isolated compound. Um, curcumin is very poorly bioavailable in the body, meaning that you basically, if you eat a lot of just pure curcumin a lot, most of it you're going to just, it's going to go straight through. You're going to poop it out. Okay. So you, you want to get compounds like curcumin in circulation in your bloodstream as it crosses over from your gut into your bloodstream. Now what's interesting when you mentioned in the in cuisine and the classic Curry dish, um, there's one plant that's often combined with turmeric in classic Indian cooking and that is um, Piper Niagara or the black pepper and black pepper, um, which originates in a area of India known as Corolla India. This, this, um, pepper vine actually produces a compound that we call piperine. And this is what's really fascinating. Scientists have shown that when you combine hypering Hmm. With curcumin, yeah, you can get a massive improvements in the bioavailability of the curcumin and the body. So you take two plants together that enhance, um, the effects. Um, and so that's why when we talk about eating your medicine, it's not just about taking a curcumin supplement. It's really the best way is to take it as this traditional dish that has fresh ground black pepper, which is richest in piperine to further enhance the health benefiting properties of those ingredients.
Charles Raison:So this is an example to my way of thinking about how, how different streams of knowledge could speak to each other. Because I have a little bit of insider knowledge on the fact that there've been a couple of grants to people I know about that have been giving people curcumin for say, cancer related fatigue or depression or anxiety. And I think they were just given a massive amounts of curcumin because, you know, I don't think they knew about the piperine thing, which is one point. The other point is, you know, this is, there's other examples of this that be fuddled me. Uh, you know, I, you know, I do some work in psychedelics and, um, I WASC is a classic example, right? So it's got a very, very, um, uh, psychedelic substance called dimethyltryptamine DMT. But that doesn't cross the, um, that doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. It gets eaten up in the body. Um, so folks down in the Amazon discovered if they combined the plant that makes that with vines that make molecules called monoamine oxidase inhibitors that blocks the degradation of the DMT in the body. I mean,
Cassandra Quave:it's amazing how they come up with that. I know,
Charles Raison:like how did they, you know, was it just that the pepper made it taste better and they got lucky or was it that that, I mean, is this part of it, is there a part of the ethnobotany field that tries to understand how humans hit upon this stuff without understanding understanding in our terms at least, uh, the underlying, you know,
Cassandra Quave:chemistry? Well, I think from what I've learned with my time working with healers and the Amazon and the Mediterranean, even in the Balkans has been that Mmm. People that live closely embedded within nature as part of their traditional way of living are finally attuned to natural life cycles. They see things in natural signal well, such as how the fish are behaving or what the pelt on a certain animal looks like. Or when plants are coming into flower, if there are changes. And likewise, they're also very attuned to the physiological responses to, um, to the ingestion of different substances. And so I've, um, I actually studied under an Iowasca healer in Peru. And what he taught me about Iowasca was that you have this vine, it's banisteriopsis, Cappy is the name, it's in the malpighian ESY family and produces these moderating oxidase inhibitors, which also have antidepressant effects on their own. But taking just the Iowasca vine will not yield the kind of hallucinogenic effects that you experience unless it's combined, as you mentioned, with these sources of dimethyltryptamine. Now, dimethyltryptamine if taken through other routes, for example, if it's inhaled, is a very short acting effect, but when taken together through this route that allows it to be orally available, it can last for, for quite some time under that context. And you see this over and over again, these combinations of plants to yield certain effects. And I think part of the issue too is we don't give traditional cultures enough credit for all that they've contributed to medicine. Um, and if you think about something like malaria and the contributions of SyncroNis bark or the source of quinine to basically, Mmm, massive expansion of, of European powers. I mean that's, that played a huge role in history in, um, being able to fight back against malaria. And that came from traditional understandings of, of taking these very specific plants in a very specific way. And what else is important to note is that not all things that are natural are safe. This goes back to that food medicine continuum. Anything that's a medicine also has the potential to be a poison if you take it at the wrong dose or the wrong through the wrong route. Um, so there's a very fine line that's followed. And this line I feel is, is very well understood among traditional healers when it comes to caring for their patients.
Charles Raison:Yeah. It's so interesting, isn't it? And, and, um, well, you know, since we've, since we've invoked it, uh, maybe we could talk about something that you and I had talked about. So quinine, uh, sounds a lot like Quinn. Uh, are they related to each other?
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. So quinine is a natural compound that's derived from this in Kona bark. So I mentioned before that was determined to be one of the main active ingredients found in Kona bark. Um, Quinn and hydroxy chloroquine, which have been in the news quite a bit are actually both synthetically generated molecules. Their structures are different from quinine and they are found nowhere in nature. So these are only molecules that can be made by man in a laboratory. Right now I put out at uh, with some collaborators at, um, in Europe, we put together a little opinion piece that discuss the difference between the East because we became concerned that people were starting to seek out, um, both sinned, Kona Bart and a tonic water, which you also find quinine and very low levels and efforts to protect themselves from, uh, the Corona virus. And, uh, the basic premise we were trying to show is that no, these are different things. Um, one is not like the other, and by the way, if you consume a lot of this, there are actually some serious toxic side effects including synchronism, um, which can lead to some ringing in the ears and some, some permanent damage and all so heart conditions that can prove fatal. Um, especially for elderly patients. Um, and so there's a lot of confusion when it comes to these chemical interest policies. But the main underlying point is that those are two very different things. Yes, there are used to treat malaria. Um, and as far as what's been published recently in the literature, the jury is still out on any utility for the use of cork, winter hydroxy core Quinn for the treatment of coronavirus. In fact, some large studies are underway and some data is starting to come out to show that they're not effective. Um, and quinine has shown no, no data hinting in its use or utility for crew. Novaris yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I guess when people, when people are scared or you know, certainly now in this time of coven, the drive to find a magic bullet. Yeah. And I, and I can totally understand that. And you know, and I think one of the things that's unique about medicine today and kind of this Western context of medicine is much of the control of our health has been taken out of our hands. It's um, whereas in many traditional societies you have a bit more control or more interaction with herbs and things that people take to maintain their health. And I think it's a natural desire to be able to feel empowered and to be able to best protect yourself and your family. But again, just as we posted it in that article in the conversation, it's, it's really important not to fall prey to some of these, um, you know, profits hearing scams basically that are, that are reaping profits over the fear that people have and could even lead to some pretty serious health side effects. There was, um, an example of, um, a couple that took, uh, uh, some hydroxy chloroquine that is used in fish tank cleaning and unfortunately one of, one of the, um, members of the couple died. Um, so this is, this is a serious thing. Um, so again, be careful with what you see, especially in social media with quick cures. There are so many, uh, strange and false ad ads out there, promising immediate effects that I can talk for a moment about, you know, herbal Viagra, um, herbal Viagra is marketed as this all natural, you know, uh, therapy for, for male impotence when in reality the government is constantly having to take these things off the market because they're not verbal at all. It's actually, you know, dietary supplements that are adulterated or, or purposely I'm dosed with sildenafil or sildenafil analogs, which is the chemical name of Viagra, which as you can imagine, can be very dangerous for someone taking this, especially if you have no controls over what sorts of doses are going into these, um, quote unquote herbal supplements. And they're not verbal at all. Um, we see this also, there was a lot of tragic out from some of the, um, uh, cannabinoid, um, analogs that were used in kind of making this, uh, they called it legal cannabis. This is before cannabis was legalized in many other places. And some of these had some pretty serious psychotic side effects and they were being sprayed onto random bits of plants. These are synthetic analogs made in a laboratory being sprayed onto random plants and then being sold as a natural non-cannabis thing. Um, but again, very dangerous so you have to be careful. Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous, you know, companies that put these kind of very dangerous products out there. The same can be said for a lot of these, uh, herbal, uh, supplements for that are targeting, uh, young men and women that are interested in kind of performance enhancement for sports. Um, these can include some very dangerous compounds like, um, ephedrine. Ephedra has now been banned from U S market as inclusion, but these can lead to heart attacks and, and fatalities. We now see a dangerous use of caffeine instead of a Phaedra then this worries me. I've even seen advertisements for pure caffeine to be sold in bottles and caffeine. For anyone that's ever taken a caffeine pill or taken too many, um, kind of, uh, energy beverages, you will note that there are toxicities associated with caffeine. You may start to jitter, you may feel your heart race, you may even break out in hives, but at very high doses. These can also have, as I mentioned, some serious, uh, dangerous stimulant effects on the heart. And when combined with heavy exercise can lead to death. So it's a bit of a minefield when you're out there looking for reputable herbal products. But again, I think anything that promises a miraculous immediate, massive shift in pharmacology is probably not something you should take.
Charles Raison:Right? So if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true usually. Right. That's what I always sort to think. Yeah. It's so, it must be interesting, um, you being, you know, sort of walking this line of, of having this sort of profound respect for expertise in herbal medicines and traditional things and, and yet to have and yet having this scientific commitment to data and, and you know, as opposed to, you know, cause a lot of times people get so, um, there's such true believers around some of these things.
Cassandra Quave:Yeah, I think, you know, and, and I do to be clearer, I think that we're going to continue to find some break through medications and plants in the future. And I do feel that based on data that has been published in the literature and on data that we generate, even my own laboratory, that there's a lot of pharmacological potential implants and that many of these traditional remedies likely do work, but perhaps not through the mechanisms that we're used to. So for example, in my lab we really focus on anti-infective drug discovery. So we're interested in, um, plant based compounds that can help us to better treat multidrug resistant infections, particularly with bacteria. Now, if you think about the way that we currently address microbial infections, it's often with this kind of kill all approach, like we let loose an antibiotic bomb in the body. And unfortunately in addition to hitting the target that we're trying to hit, there's often collateral damage. We're hitting other organisms that could be useful for our health. And this has become a really big problem with gut microbiome imbalances can then lead to C difficile infections and so on. And what we've found that's been really interesting is from plants that healers use to treat infections, we've found compounds that don't actually inhibit the growth of the bacteria and they don't kill the bacteria, but instead they work by blocking the bacteria's ability to cause harm to the body. And so it's kind of opened my eyes to there, the fact that there are other ways to address infection and I would have that this kind of premise that, you know, perhaps there are other ways to also address other types of diseases and we can learn from these traditional medicines by opening up the investigation to other types of targets.
Charles Raison:So the, the medicine food continuum, uh, seems to me to be very relevant right now. Uh, not, not so much for the bacterial world, but for the other sort of key player in the world of the very small, the viral world obviously cause of the covert pandemic.
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. Well, and this is something that I've also, in addition to my class, I talk a lot about on my, on my podcast called foodie pharmacology. And you can find it@foodiepharmacology.com. Um, this, I think one of the ways that we can better engage with plants, especially at a time where immune function is so important, is by making smart choices in our diet. Um, and this, it can be challenging, especially under times of stress. Right. Um, I think a lot of people, myself included, have had moments where I'm like, I just want to go for the bag of Oreos or the chips, right? Because I'm like, ah, I need to stress, eat. Um, but it's also an important time to really think about, you know, how can I best serve my body's needs for peak immune fitness? Right. Yeah. And a lot of that comes down to having a diet that's rich in complex carbohydrates and, and those dark leafy greens and in the dark berries. Now why the dark berries in the dark leafy greens? Well, it comes back to that same concept I discussed earlier around the spices. It's about where there are, uh, a lot of these antioxidant anti-inflammatory compounds that are found naturally in those ingredients in those foods. And so one of the things that I've really been excited about watching from afar, I guess through the lens of social media has been this resurgence of an interest in gardening. And I see that as being therapeutical multiple levels. Um, number one, there are many studies that show that the psychological and mental health that you have can be improved by engagement with nature. I think it's a great also source of exercise. Um, you get out into the garden, but also there's, there's something that's really nutritional about being able to grow your own food and eat something that's fresh from the ground. Um, if you compare, for example, the flavor of a store bought tomato that has been shipped sometimes from across an ocean in a container ship harvested when it's green, not mature gas to put a rival to force it to turn red. If you compare that to me too, two, that's come off of a vine, right? Then you know, find ripened on the plant. There's a night and day difference in what you're tasting. It has, the depth of flavor is much greater. The sweetness is, is, is there, and the experience is quite different. And what you're experiencing, that difference in flavor is really your body's way of detecting the differences in the chemical makeup of those two versions of the tomato. Because the chemistry of this immature long distance ship tomato is going to be very different from that of your vine ripened tomato. And that also translates into the potential health benefits of those foods. So when you think about compounds like lycopene, which is one that's found prominently in tomatoes, you're going to have, you know, a richer level. All of those in, in the locally grown, you don't have the same level of degradation that you see in, in far shipped, um, produce. Also going back to this idea of how to combine Mmm. Ingredients to yield the best effect, what do you usually cook when you're including, um, when you're making up a sauce for an Italian meal, it's onions, olive oil and tomato where there's actually been, some studies have shown that this come the nation of heat with the oil and allium species, including garlic and onions can increase, again, the bioavailability of lycopene and the body of that potent and I, um, inflammatory compounds. So again, we see, you know, instead of just taking a pill, you're integrating this in your diet in a delicious way, but your body is also receiving greater benefit from that consumption of that ingredient. You know, why, why do tomatoes produce lycopene? I mean, what's in it for the tomato to produce something like this? It can't just be a random, I mean, why do dark leafy vegetables have these antioxidant anti-inflammatory compounds? They're not doing it for our benefit. I don't assume. No, I mean, and you, you touched on it briefly in the big 18, but it's basically, think about it this way, plants are sessile, they can't go towards a resource they need. Yeah. They can't escape a threat, right? And so they actually produce, um, all of these different molecules as a way of communicating with other organisms in their environment. Let's think about the smell of a Rose. Why does a Rose smell like a Rose and why does a corpse plant smell like dead rotting flesh when it's in flower? The reason why is that they, those are actually signals that the plants are emitting to attract very different types of pollinators. And so they can't go to the pony or they have to call the pollinators to them. And the same is true when it comes to defense. Um, think about a compound like, um, caffeine or even nicotine. Both of those are defense compounds that, um, are used to protect the plant against insect attack. But in humans, those compounds act in our brains in really interesting ways.
Charles Raison:But so, so, so, I mean, obviously the insect would not be a big Starbucks user or a coffee drinker. Right. Is that true? That caffeine is, is differentially toxic in insects compared to mammals?
Cassandra Quave:Absolutely. Yes.
Charles Raison:Oh, it's so fascinating. Yeah.
Cassandra Quave:It's, it's just amazing how you have this long history of coevolution with different insects and animals and see dispersers pollinators, all these different, um, you know, in gate levels of engagement. And then what else is interesting is we talked about flowers. Well, um, the leaves of Rose don't smell like the flower and that's because the leaves serve a very different purpose than the floral tissue does. Same for the roots. The roots are going to have a different chemical makeup than the leaves and then the flowers of the same plant. So plants are producing very different molecules within each tissue, um, to serve in different roles, whether it's protection or calling other organisms nearby. We know also that some plants can emit volatile compounds, call other organisms nearby to help fight off parasites. So they may call another insect that preys on, appear a site that's, that's bothering them. And, um, it's just, it's just amazing like, you know, to, to really speak the chemical language of plants if, if there, if that was possible to really fully interpret it. I mean we do it today through tools like mass spectrometry and applied metabolomics approaches to do that, to kind of see what the signals look like that they're in constant States chatter with each other and with other organisms and their environment.
Charles Raison:I like a whole different language. So, so of course now, so I mean on the other it can't be accidental that these compounds are good for us. Is that, is that us co-evolving with the plants that we ate that, you know, essentially, you know, eating that the, the, you know, people that had a genetic makeup that benefited most from eating it were more likely to survive and reproduce so that it became a synergy between what the, I mean, it, it can't be a total accident that so many of these compounds are good for us where they're not good for an insect for instance. So we must have,
Cassandra Quave:no, a lot of it goes back to those human interactions with plants because all cultivated plants, all the vegetables that you see in the store were once wild plants that someone, some farmer I decided to work with and tinker with. And um, I can give you the example of potatoes. So potatoes originate in the Andes, in South America and, and these very high montane regions, the Andi and potatoes, some varieties are incredibly rich and these very poisonous compounds known as glyco alkaloids and the Amara people that have historically been the[inaudible][inaudible], the people that have cultivated and really overseeing how potatoes have become today. Um, they have a higher tolerance for bitterness. But what's interesting is they have different varieties of potatoes. Some of of these, they allow to remain very bitter and then they will actually stomp on them and leach them into water and go through all this kind of manual processing and efforts to reduce the toxicity of that crop. We see the same thing with things like bitter manioc or cassava, also known as Yuca bitter manioc, which is in the euphoria family. It's a very poisonous plant family. Bitter manioc has higher levels of a compound Nunez, you know, hydrogen cyanide poisoning, right? Yeah. But people in, in tropical regions still grow bitter manioc because that one's more resilient to PEs. They'll grow that and then they have to grade it and treat to remove the poison. And so you have in many cases in traditional agriculture, you have not just one version of the potato or one version of the manioc or one version of the leafy green. You have many different iterations of that which have different characteristics. And the goal at the end of the day is to ensure that you can feed your family. So you can do that by basically having a security net in place and including some of the slightly more poisonous versions of the plant that are better set to defend themselves against attack. The crops that we grow today in agribusiness have like no defenses, which is why we have to spray them with all of these pesticides and herbicides because yeah, we've basically bred out their ability to defend themselves. Um, well we did that because they freeing them from having to do that provided more energy for growth of caloric material or why, why, why did we do that? Well, if you look at the history of for many crops we've selected for specific traits. So, um, let's take corn for example. Yeah. Core. And at one point was, you know, the head of the corn was smaller than the tip of my pinky finger. It was really small. And we've over time have grown that to be larger and larger and sweeter and lacking in and those colors and some of those colored, um, color elements can also, uh, include polyphenols and flavonoids that may have some kind of slightly bitter constituents to it. And so, yeah, bred out a lot of the bitter elements of our foods in some cases and other cases we've selected for different types of forms of plants. One that I love to use in class, an example of this is, um, brassica older AC or, um, basically the prototype for cabbage, but actually this same species is the progenitor for many different varieties. So think about kale in green cabbage and red cabbage and broccoli and cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. They're all the same species. They're just different varieties within the same species. So they all started off as this one wild thing that were then selected over time by humans for there are different forms and um, yeah, so it's, it's amazing the impact that we've had over time on the crops that we eat today. So when you go into the grocery store and you look around the produce section, there's actually pretty low biodiversity in what we're eating. Most of your internal oils are gonna be corn products. I think that's how we're going to be known in the future. We're gonna be known as the era of the corn people because so many of our foods are some, you know, derivitization of course horn and on the outer Isles. We have very low diversity now and our apples with very low diversity in, um, other crops that we're consuming as well. Um, and so this is where we come back to the idea of seed banking. It's important to have seed banking and biodiversity because what happens when you have a changing climate or what happens when the next pandemic is not a human pandemic, but it wipes out the majority of one of our major crops. Yeah. What do you do in that circumstance? Do you need to go back to different genetic resources?
Charles Raison:Right. That's, that is so, so it's partly a safety thing. How much nutrition are we missing, um, as a result of this restorative basically, you know, so basically if I understand you right, you know, you look at the produce aisle and you see, you know, all these apparently different products, but in fact, um, they, they, they're much more similar to each other than their looks would suggest. And there, there, there, there aren't that many progenitors that are represented and many of the, that there may have been compounds in the progenitors that, while not as sort of simply tasted to us, may have had health benefits that we've lost. How much, you know, if we had, if we could go back to a much wider array of plant based items that came from no different species, would that be, how beneficial would that be for our health?
Cassandra Quave:I think it'd be tremendously beneficial. I think the challenge is that, you know, our industrial system of both growing and distributing crops is not set up for diversity. Our entire farming enterprise is all about how can we make our crop as similar as possible, as consistent as possible so that we can then use mechanization to harvest that crop and to sew it and all the other steps that go into, in between. Um, now that's not necessarily bad thing because the truth of the matter is industrial ag feeds the world, right? And, um, I think as many people are learning now when your food system is disrupted, it's a little bit scary when you don't have that traditional knowledge of how to, how do you even start a garden? How do you know when to plant things, when it's, how do you protect your plants from pests? Which plants go best together as companion plants to help you know, prevent pest attack. How do you store the balance piece of our food to do? Um, I've done a number of episodes recently on the podcast around the, around the processes of fermentation and why fermentation has been such a valuable tool throughout history, across many different cultures and food preservation and in food security. Um, and it also has a number of health benefits because it basically allows for another way to incorporate probiotics into your diet. What is fermentation exactly? I mean, we all know the word, but yeah, so I mean from an fermented foods are things that we've, that all the listeners have eaten at some point, you know, bread, cheese, wine, um, pickles and then not vinegar pickles but lacto-fermented pickles, um, you know, tofu. Um, you're a Misa, your soy sauce, your chocolate tea, coffee. We eat a lot of fermented things. Um, and traditionally, I mean, the basic definition of fermentation is microbiome, the transformation of our foods. Now I think a lot of us have this fixation on microbes as being bad microbes cause spoilage of food. But there are ways to basically cultivate an environment in which you can support the growth of good microbes to then, um, transform your food in a way that can promote health benefits or, um, increase shelf life. I've done a lot of work with primary, um, field expeditions and work in the Balkans. And one of the reasons I got so interested in the process of fermentation was for my work in the mountains, um, the Shari mountains along the border of Albania and Kosovo. And what's interesting about working with these communities is that they are isolated from the rest of the world for about six months out of the year because they have heavy snows, they have dirt roads up into these mountains and they can't get off the mountain. And so that means no trip to the grocery store, you know? So how do you survive half the year with just what you're able to provision for yourself during the warm months for growing and during the months for wild foraging foods. And one of the major ways that they do this is through fermentation. Um, they also ferment a lot of things that we would look at, not think of necessarily as foods, but actually are incredibly rich. A lot of these antioxidant compounds. So for, they will take the fruits of a local Dogwood. Um, here in Georgia we have cornus Florida. Donna have this beautiful Dogwood. I'm in the Balkans. You have a Dogwood called cornice Moss. It has this really pretty little red fruit on it. And so they will use that. They will from it that and to kind of a sparkling beverage, very low alcohol, but has carbon dioxide production and drink it as like a healthy fruit soda. The same can be true for the work they do with Rose hips. So the, the fruits that form on Rose plants. So, okay, so ferment those and then drink that as a health beverage. Um, and you see examples of this in many different cultures, but I just find that fascinating how they can take resources that we normally wouldn't look at as food and then transform it into something that's incredibly beneficial to their health. Yeah, that's so interesting. So basically the bacteria work on the food product and they cause changes, I assume in its chemical structure that make it less likely to spoil when it, yeah, when it becomes exposed to other bacteria, I mean is that sort of, is it so, yeah. So you have bacteria and yeast can, can, can um, move forward fermentation processes. Um, there's a lot of recent interest around sourdough starters and that's a mixed environment of both bacteria and yeast to make your sourdough culture. And in fact, in the past, all bread was that mixture made with that mixture of bacteria and yeast. We really only moved to yeast, only bread making in the past century when and commercial yeast became available. So bread in the past always had this kind of sour newness to it. Um, so a simple ferment that people can try at home is what? No, basically salt brining vegetables. So let's say that you have some carrots in your fridge or some cabbage or, or cucumbers or, um, there are a number of different things that you can use. Basically, there are microbes in his lab lactobacilli that live on the surface of your plants. They live on your vegetables already. And so all that you do is by adding salt, you create an environment in which those bacteria can survive, but your harmful bacteria, like things like e-coli can not. And it allows for a place for them to grow. And then they gobble up different molecules found in that plant and um, transform it in terms of texture and in tour terms of chemistry. And it again increases the shelf stability of, of the food by increasing the acidity. So these become more and more sour, more and more acidic over time. And that's how you get those really nice sour dill pickles. It's through those traditional lacto ferments and bad bacteria like he call, I just don't like to eat sour things. Well they, they can't handle the asset or the salt levels. It kills them if they to eat.
Charles Raison:Exactly. Yes. And so you and I had talked earlier, I mean this fermentation business is something that the[inaudible] pandemic has sort of kicked up. People are at home sort of trying these things out.
Cassandra Quave:Yeah, I've seen reports of, you know, flower flower shortages where people are just baking so much and they're starting to experiment with, uh, trying to make their own sourdough cultures and, yeah.
Charles Raison:And of course then if these, um, some of these fermented products I assume have some of the same benefits in terms of, do they have some of the same anti-inflammatory, you know, uh, antioxidant properties, or is it more that they tend to promote a healthy gut?
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. Microbiome or, so it all depends on the starter, the starter material. So if we're talking about things like those dark berries that are being fermented or your dog would fruits or your Rose hips, um, those definitely have a lot of antioxidant, um, activity. Um, if you're talking about some of your, um, other kinds of leafy greens and things, you get both the anti-inflammatory and antibiotics and properties of the flavonoids found in those plants. And also the, you know, the lactic acid fermentation bacteria benefit, that probiotic benefit that helps, um, maintain gut integrity. Yeah.
Charles Raison:Yeah. That's really so, so it sort of in closing, uh, imagine, I mean what, what is, uh, we've talked about, I mean we, we, we touched upon this, that, okay, so here we are in this covert pandemic and people are, are very scared of getting infected. And of course what this has really highlighted is that what stands between us and death just in general, but certainly now is the functioning of our immune system that, you know, there aren't antibiotics for viruses. Uh, you know, there may be some of these drugs that are coming online, you know, fingers crossed that will help people that are really seriously ill not pass away, but viruses are a different gig. We really, really are depending on the ability of our immune system. So, so what are some good meals? Uh, you know, uh, if one wanted to use to sort of tap into this food medicine continuum and, and use food if not as medicine, then at least in a more general sense, uh, to sort of help support healthy immunity.
Cassandra Quave:Yeah. Well, I mean, I think too there, there is hope from antivirals that are being researched as well. And I'll give you the example of, you know, but I always have students ask me this question. I have a slide that I present that shows like all the different things that can interfere with your immune function. And I call it like the spring break slide because they're smoking, there's sunshine, there's alcohol, there's you know, pollution and all of these things cause DNA damage to our body. And that is bad, right? You don't want to have all these sources of DNA damage. So I call it the spring break slide. So they always ask, well, can I still smoke and party and be at the beach all day? I get sunburned. But if I eat a lot of those, am I going to be safe? You know? No, I mean there's only so much, there's only so far that you can go with, with dietary changes.[inaudible] boosting your immune response and really ensuring your health. If, if you're, if you're exposing yourself to all these pollutants and things that damage your body, that promote high levels of oxidative stress, we're kind of a pro inflammatory state, then you know, that dietary change isn't going to help you as much. It'll help some, but you know, to get the full benefit you really need to be aware of. Do you know if you're chain smoking your way through this epidemic, I would say now's the time to stop smoking. Um, also because, um, you know, patients that have compromised lungs don't, don't fear as well. Um, and it's also the time to think carefully about what you, how are you nourishing your body. Um, and it's not just again, a food approach. You need to think about other healthy choices. Um, can you exercise moderate exercise, not extreme, but moderate exercise. Can you take a couple of walks around the block at a safe distance from other people? Um, mental health is also incredibly important and being aware of your mental state and using resources that are available to us all. Um, if you, you know, have access to books or internet resources that can help you through meditation practices or yoga practices and then also the diet. So I really think about health is, is multifactorial isn't not just about, okay, if you eat this one thing, you're going to be just fine. That's, yeah, that's, that's not what it's about, but it's, it's more about taking that balanced approach and being really intentional and aware of, of what you're doing.
Charles Raison:Yeah. Well thank you. Uh, Cassie, let me, uh, tell us again your website cause it's a fascinating, I mean your podcasts are really amazing too, so make sure people get it.
Cassandra Quave:Thanks. Yeah, it's found at, um, foodie pharmacology.com and so that's spelled F O O D I P H. Okay. A R M a C O L O G y.com. And on Twitter we are at foodie pharma, um, and also in Instagram. Thanks so much for having me on.
Charles Raison:Yeah, thank you Sandra. So I've been speaking with Cassandra Quaive about a whole bunch of things relevant, not just to the covert pandemic, but just to our health in general. So thank you again.
Cassandra Quave:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Health is everything. Health is every health is everything.
Charles Raison:Thank you for listening to health is everything you know. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend or rate rated on Apple podcasts. You can follow the Emory university center for the study of human health at Emory, C S H H on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Until next time, I'm Dr. Charles raison wishing you the best of health.