Over the last two years I've gotten into gardening in a serious way. I have about a hundred species of plants growing now, and another three hundred fifty or so waiting for Spring.
Coming from a sciencey computer nerd background I have to say, plants are incredible. For one thing, they are very intelligent and adaptable. They have senses we don't fully understand. Together with fungi and microbes in soil they form LANs that administer large areas of the Earth and adjust environmental conditions to suit themselves. Seriously, look at living things as nanotechnology and you realize we are in (and of) a kind of living fractal cathedral of information and life.
Anyway, before I get too lyrical, my point is that plants produce myriad chemical substances that have effects on your metabolism. We are all familiar (if only by reputation) with the heavy hitters: Coffee, Coca, Cacao, Cannabis, (lotta C's) Tobacco, etc. But there are thousands of species of plants that produce innumerable substances that are essentially medicines: chemicals that have a stereotypical effect on metabolism.
It's entirely reasonable and unsurprising that some plant, such as Boswellia sacra, the sap of which is the source of frankincense, could have such an effect.
A well-stocked garden/forest is a medicine cabinet.
- - - -
As the author points out, it behooves us to "do science to it", eh?
When FitBit-style wearable medical monitoring devices become commonplace we're going to have a wealth of data to correlate, at least in theory.
Coming from a sciencey computer nerd background I have to say, plants are incredible. For one thing, they are very intelligent and adaptable. They have senses we don't fully understand. Together with fungi and microbes in soil they form LANs that administer large areas of the Earth and adjust environmental conditions to suit themselves. Seriously, look at living things as nanotechnology and you realize we are in (and of) a kind of living fractal cathedral of information and life.
Anyway, before I get too lyrical, my point is that plants produce myriad chemical substances that have effects on your metabolism. We are all familiar (if only by reputation) with the heavy hitters: Coffee, Coca, Cacao, Cannabis, (lotta C's) Tobacco, etc. But there are thousands of species of plants that produce innumerable substances that are essentially medicines: chemicals that have a stereotypical effect on metabolism.
It's entirely reasonable and unsurprising that some plant, such as Boswellia sacra, the sap of which is the source of frankincense, could have such an effect.
A well-stocked garden/forest is a medicine cabinet.
- - - -
As the author points out, it behooves us to "do science to it", eh?
When FitBit-style wearable medical monitoring devices become commonplace we're going to have a wealth of data to correlate, at least in theory.