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.
So, a metabolic pathway is the set of steps by which an organism converts one molecule into another - this can be by splitting a molecule into pieces, by adding or removing an atom or small group of atoms, or by combining two different molecules into a larger or more complex one. By way of a very, very simple pathway, your body breaks down ethanol (alcohol, C2H5OH) by first removing a hydrogen (and causing the oxygen to double-bond to the carbon) to create Acetaldehyde, CH3CH=O, and then oxidizing that by swapping the H remaining on the second carbon for an OH to create Acetic Acid, the primary component in vinegar. So, when we say your body metabolizes ethanol into acetic acid, we're talking about a two step metabolic pathway.
Bacteria can stash intermediate pathway results outside of their cell wall for various reasons (sometimes the chemical environment is more amenable outside the cell than inside, sometimes buildup of the intermediates can disrupt other processes, sometimes that's just how it happens - biology is weird), and very often what you'll see is that a multi-step metabolic pathway can span across multiple different organisms - so, species 1 takes up a starting material, performs a handful of modifications, and then excrete the results outside the cell wall, and then another species will take up that substance and perform additional modifications on it, and this can run through several species before reaching the terminal state in the pathway (including the first species again). This works because each bacteria can have different enzymes and different internal chemistry which can affect how easy or likely a reaction is.
Nitrogen fixing is a notable example of this - it's not just one species in the roots of legumes responsible for taking N2 and converting it into ammonia, there's 6 or 7 that take part in that pathway.
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 . You could imagine parallel pathways where maybe microbe 2 only works if it is in the presence of microbe 3.
Meaning everything is a mess to try and disentangle.
I think you're far better off looking after your longer term diet to prevent the inflammation in the first place. Antioxidants in plant foods are your phenols, carotenoids, and vitamins while in meat they are amino acids making up complete proteins. The mechanisms at play there are way better understood.
I personally try to make sure I include ingredients like garlic, cinnamon, ginger, etc. where possible, guiding my snacks more towards nuts and cheeses, and avoiding too much saturated fat while still getting most of my protein for the day from real meat. I take my salads and stir-fries very seriously, but it seems to be a lost art at times.
I try not to overthink these basics, but I'm willing to bet many people have mediocre to poor diets from this perspective despite knowing better because they lose track and things get boring.
I feel like in this day and age we should be in the middle of a scientific and culinary renaissance full of exciting recipes that incorporate these ingredients in new ways. Instead I see a lot of traditional or ethnic-inspired cuisine lacking creativity. Not that what we have is bad, just boring.
All this to ask if anyone has solid cookbook recommendations?
Pretty interesting. In homeopathy mint is considered one of the most potent antidoting substances which is something that neutralises or cancels the action of another homeopathic remedy. Maybe a comment like this activates chimp brain downvote circuits in HNers but a lot of medicines start from these folk traditions and then make their way into regular medicine.
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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.
> 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?
Bacteria can stash intermediate pathway results outside of their cell wall for various reasons (sometimes the chemical environment is more amenable outside the cell than inside, sometimes buildup of the intermediates can disrupt other processes, sometimes that's just how it happens - biology is weird), and very often what you'll see is that a multi-step metabolic pathway can span across multiple different organisms - so, species 1 takes up a starting material, performs a handful of modifications, and then excrete the results outside the cell wall, and then another species will take up that substance and perform additional modifications on it, and this can run through several species before reaching the terminal state in the pathway (including the first species again). This works because each bacteria can have different enzymes and different internal chemistry which can affect how easy or likely a reaction is.
Nitrogen fixing is a notable example of this - it's not just one species in the roots of legumes responsible for taking N2 and converting it into ammonia, there's 6 or 7 that take part in that pathway.
Meaning everything is a mess to try and disentangle.
I personally try to make sure I include ingredients like garlic, cinnamon, ginger, etc. where possible, guiding my snacks more towards nuts and cheeses, and avoiding too much saturated fat while still getting most of my protein for the day from real meat. I take my salads and stir-fries very seriously, but it seems to be a lost art at times.
I try not to overthink these basics, but I'm willing to bet many people have mediocre to poor diets from this perspective despite knowing better because they lose track and things get boring.
I feel like in this day and age we should be in the middle of a scientific and culinary renaissance full of exciting recipes that incorporate these ingredients in new ways. Instead I see a lot of traditional or ethnic-inspired cuisine lacking creativity. Not that what we have is bad, just boring.
All this to ask if anyone has solid cookbook recommendations?