Professor Geoff Abbott is a botanical Indiana Jones. Lead expeditions to wild places on Earth to find medicinal treasures: herbal remedies used by indigenous people that may contain life-saving chemicals that will revolutionize treatments for serious disorders.
These expeditions take Geoff Abbott, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), to natural spaces within the Mojave Desert and Yosemite National Park in the US, as well as to Hawaii, the Unspoilt and along the Pacific coast. from Canada, all far from Norfolk, where he grew up.
“These are places where you need satellite phones and a survival kit, they’re that remote,” he told Good Health.
Back in his laboratory, Professor Abbott also examines how staple foods such as rosemary, thyme, coriander, lavender and chamomile can treat conditions as diverse as epilepsy, high blood pressure, infections and even addiction to drugs. the drugs.
Skeptics have often dismissed herbal treatments as having no more scientific basis than witchcraft and spells.
“These are places where you need satellite phones and survival equipment, they are that remote,” Professor Geoff Abbott told Good Health.
But in his UCI laboratory, Professor Abbott and his team are using cutting-edge science to reveal the powers of herbal medicines.
In particular, they explore how chemicals from traditionally used herbs can cure serious illnesses by repairing faults in the microscopic electrical switches that permeate our body.
These electrical switches are called ion channels. They are found on the outer membranes of protein cells found throughout the human body and determine the strength of the electrical charges within them. The level of this charge, in turn, determines how proteins function.
Proteins themselves play essential roles in regulating the electrical signals that allow our nervous system and organs such as the brain, heart and muscles to function.
Ion channel switches allow ions (electrically charged atoms) to enter protein cells whenever they need to be charged. The level of charge within proteins determines the strength with which they interact with other elements of the nervous system.
What makes the bite of some spiders, scorpions or snakes so dangerous is that the venom can interfere with their victims’ ion channels to deactivate their nervous system.
Similarly, if ion channel switches fail and become overactive or hypoactive, they can cause a variety of diseases such as epilepsy, high blood pressure, and even, apparently, drug addiction.
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
Professor Abbott’s work shows that chemicals present in common herbs can repair ionic switches that are not working properly for any reason, whether genetic faults, injury, disease or poisoning.
Some can make underactive ion switches work properly again; others reject overactive switches.
“We are analyzing 2,000 botanical extracts,” says Professor Abbott.
Some well-known plants show promise. For example, a study by his laboratory published in the journal FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) found that cilantro contains a chemical, dodecanal, that can reduce epilepsy seizures. Dodecanol alters the ion channels of brain cells to make them less excitable; Epileptic seizures may occur as a result of excessive excitability of brain cells.
Coriander has been used for centuries in Southeast Asian and North African folk medicine to reduce seizures. It was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. But until this publication, no one scientifically knew how cilantro acted on epilepsy.
Professor Abbott said: “This discovery may lead to more effective use of coriander as an anticonvulsant or to modifications of dodecanol to develop more effective anticonvulsant drugs.”
His research is often inspired by the continued use of medicinal herbs by indigenous peoples.
Recently, his team has been working with the Kwakwaka’wakw people, who live on the Pacific coast of Canada, to identify the molecular mechanism underlying the use of three different plants (nettle, bladderwrack and Pacific bark) to treat ataxia (a group of neurological disorders that affect balance, coordination and speech).
At least 10,000 adults and 500 children in the UK suffer from some form, according to the charity Ataxia UK.
Professor Abbott’s team found two compounds in plants (tannic and gallic acids) that can repair defective ion channels in nerve proteins that cause symptoms.
“These are the first plant compounds known to do this; no synthetic compound can do this,” says Professor Abbott. ‘You can’t swallow tannic acid, it would make you sick. But you can rub it on your skin. Gallic acid is of greatest interest because it is already available over the counter in supplements such as bladderwrack. Toxicity studies show it is safe.
It is not clear why the Kwakwaka’wakw people needed a remedy for ataxia, “but it may have been because ataxia can be caused by infections,” says Professor Abbott.
“It is also possible that they have suffered from it by taking hallucinogenic plants revered in indigenous medicine and shamanism, but which can cause ataxia in case of overdose.”
Meanwhile, rosemary shows promise as a treatment for cocaine addiction. It contains carnosic acid, which is already known to open ion channels in the brain.
Professor Abbott explains: “A colleague mentioned that he had discovered that these same brain ion channels were closed in laboratory mice addicted to cocaine.”
So Professor Abbott set up an experiment in which mice could press a pair of bars to get a drink: one drink contained cocaine and the other did not.
“The mice quickly learned to press the cocaine drink bar because it is more pleasurable.”
But when the mice were given a dose of carnosic acid, they stopped choosing the cocaine stick, according to results recently published in the journal Neuron.
Why would this work? One theory, Professor Abbott says, is that the acid triggers memory formation in cocaine addicts, whose memory is programmed to obsessively crave the drug.
Rosemary has long been known for improving memory. “There is evidence to suggest that rosemary extract is worth trying to improve memory test results,” says Professor Abbott.
‘You can buy carnosic acid as a supplement. It crosses the body’s blood-brain barrier (which keeps out chemicals and infections), so it can affect brain cells.
Thyme also shows promise as a therapy against fungal infections that are becoming increasingly resistant to conventional medications.
Professor Abbott says: ‘Historically, thyme has been used as a fungicide, but no one knew how it could work. Then we discovered a small molecule that blocks an ion channel in Candida fungal infections (e.g. thrush). Candida fungi only have one of these ion channels, so it is very important for them to stay alive.’
Candida fungi usually live harmlessly on the skin, mouth, throat, intestine, and vagina. But they can cause infection if they grow uncontrolled or penetrate deep into the body. “Our tests show that a small molecule of thyme effectively stops Candida albicans, the most common type,” says Professor Abbott.
This is particularly timely as Candida strains are increasingly developing resistance to conventional antifungal medications.
A new drug-resistant strain, Candida auris, was first identified in Japan in 2009. Since then, the pathogen has spread to more than 40 countries, killing between 30 and 60 percent of infected people.
In 2017, an outbreak at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust affected 70 patients. It took two and a half years to clear the hospital of the infection.
Humans and fungi share significant amounts of DNA, making it difficult to invent antifungal drugs that kill fungi without damaging human tissues, experts warn.
However, Professor Abbot says: ‘The ion channel affected by the thyme molecule is not found in mammals. This means you can safely use it to kill Candida infections without side effects.’
Now his team hopes to develop a more potent, synthetic version of the thyme molecule.
But while they dig deeper to discover the molecular mechanisms of herbs that may be therapeutic, “it may actually sometimes be better to use whole plants,” says Professor Abbott. “Our research often suggests that there may be other chemicals in plants that, along with the ones we have discovered, make botanical therapies more effective.”
So raid the pantry and, as the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates said, “Make food your medicine.”