This is one of the things that’s deeply challenging for biology and biochemistry - it’s extremely resistant to the sort of reductionism that works so well for other fields. It’s rare to find a single compound, a single species, or a single pathway that’s responsible enough for an effect to show up in studies of the sort of power that one can muster without a ton of time and money, and as soon as you try to capture synergistic effects, you hit a combinatorial wall quickly. In microbiology, for instance, colonies of different bacterial species are the norm, not the exception, and metabolic pathways that span multiple species are common to the point that trying to isolate a given species’ contribution can miss the effect entirely.
> metabolic pathways that span multiple species are common to the point that trying to isolate a given species’ contribution can miss the effect entirely.
I think author is saying that you ingest compound A, microbe 1 eats A and secretes B, microbe 2 eats B and releases C. C happens to do <positive thing>. You could imagine parallel pathways where maybe microbe 2 only works if it is in the presence of microbe 3.
I don’t just eat junk, but it’s hard to experiment with a whole dietary change when you have sporadic inflammation. I guess that’s why we do scientific studies, right?
The article title is super misleading - this is about measurements of inflammatory markers in vitro and explicitly does not generalize to food intake.
It is also missing the "in Mice" part of the headline.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/18/3/376
Functional Phytochemicals Cooperatively Suppress Inflammation in RAW264.7 Cells
RAW 264.7 cells are a mouse macrophage cell line commonly used in research to study immune responses, inflammation, and cancer.
In mice, but not even real mice. That's a new one!
This is one of the things that’s deeply challenging for biology and biochemistry - it’s extremely resistant to the sort of reductionism that works so well for other fields. It’s rare to find a single compound, a single species, or a single pathway that’s responsible enough for an effect to show up in studies of the sort of power that one can muster without a ton of time and money, and as soon as you try to capture synergistic effects, you hit a combinatorial wall quickly. In microbiology, for instance, colonies of different bacterial species are the norm, not the exception, and metabolic pathways that span multiple species are common to the point that trying to isolate a given species’ contribution can miss the effect entirely.
> metabolic pathways that span multiple species are common to the point that trying to isolate a given species’ contribution can miss the effect entirely.
What does this mean?
I think author is saying that you ingest compound A, microbe 1 eats A and secretes B, microbe 2 eats B and releases C. C happens to do <positive thing>. You could imagine parallel pathways where maybe microbe 2 only works if it is in the presence of microbe 3.
Hopefully AI can help us parse some of these massive data sets and interactions.
chase it with a shot of espresso for 1000x increase
Can I take a capsaicin and a mint supplement together? Is that enough to get the effect?
No, the article title is misleading. This is in-vitro research only.
It is funny how that is the thing people turn to rather than just eating food. Let me eat junk and be happy while taking supplements.
What part of their post indicates they eat junk? Maybe they just don't want to have spicy minty meals every day
I don’t just eat junk, but it’s hard to experiment with a whole dietary change when you have sporadic inflammation. I guess that’s why we do scientific studies, right?
So ... mint chutney, anyone?
That particular combination reminds me of https://www.tumblr.com/nudibranchparty/188803422027/fun-fact...