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Notes -
When should we privilege the phenomenological over the pharmacological?
There are herbal remedies that people swear induce some certain desired state. Scientists attempt to discover the underlying chemical structures that induce the state, but they don’t always get it right. I’ve come across some interesting cases of this. There’s valerian root, which only recently was found to interact with adenosine (having previously been discarded as an insomnia treatment). There’s California Poppy, which was only recently discovered to contain Reticuline, which in turn was only recently discovered to induce an opioid response in the brain. There are all sorts of things going on with cannabis which are not related to THC but instead implicate a THC/CBD synergy and plausibly the addition of chemical structures known as terpenes. There are the essential oil studies that clearly indicate certain odors induce alertness (bitter lemon) or relaxation (lavender). Then there’s the science of things like serotonin which are hardly understood at all — only recently did we learn that tryptophan will selectively unbind with albumin at the blood brain barrier, and only recently has the consensus shifted to serotonin deficiency lacking a role in depression (although I have my own views on this).
Essentially, if a person asserts “the aerial parts of the Phenomena Logicila plant make me happy”, and a scientist looking at a paper finds no clear mechanism for this to occur… what do we say? The science is never conclusive or half-finished, and maybe the person has a unique physiological or genetic profile that corresponds to the feeling. What should a reasonable person do?
Try to confirm that the risks of harm are low and then continue to use them?
My general impression is that part of the reason people like "herbal" and "natural" remedies is due to fear of outsized side-effects from pharmaceuticals and the perception that herbal remedies are less dangerous. I have an aunt who would rather drink chamomile and valerian and tough out insomnia than get hooked on sleeping pills.
If the risk is low and the subjective experience is better...track it and continue?
phytochemicals are extremely interesting actually and a surprisingly high number of synthetic drugs are derivatives or imitations of phytos or endogenous molecules.
People use to joke/ridiculize them but there is nothing more ridicule than a human that ridiculize billion of years parallel bidirectional (both the molecule and the body adapt) optimization of phamacological pathways towards maximizing host or symbionts survival or other advantageous metrics.
The issue with phyto (some can be toxic btw) is that many have bad bioavailability and sometimes suboptimal pharmacokinetics or half-lives.
Both of those problems can be trivially solved, either by bypassing first pass metabolism via vitamin C and or increasing lipophilia absorption via co-administration of omega-3 and or via inhibiting the CYP 450 enzymes via e.g. piperine or grappefruit juice (beware can be dangerous with many synthetic drugs as it potentiate wildly their metabolism hence dose potency, profile and half lives)
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