The in-vitro caveat is the key issue here. The "100x" figure refers to inflammatory marker measurements in isolated mouse macrophage cell cultures, a setup where compounds are applied directly to cells at controlled concentrations. Oral supplementation involves digestion, absorption, metabolism, and distribution to tissues that make those in-vitro concentrations essentially unreachable.
Taking capsaicin and peppermint supplements together is unlikely to cause harm, but you're not replicating the study conditions. The in-vitro result is interesting as a mechanistic signal. It suggests a possible interaction pathway worth investigating, but it doesn't provide dosing guidance for humans.
This gap between study type and real-world applicability is exactly why I built vital-stack.com for supplement interactions in my database, I surface the study type and mechanism alongside the conclusion, so you can judge how much weight to give it.
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.
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.
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?
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 35.8 ms ] threadTaking capsaicin and peppermint supplements together is unlikely to cause harm, but you're not replicating the study conditions. The in-vitro result is interesting as a mechanistic signal. It suggests a possible interaction pathway worth investigating, but it doesn't provide dosing guidance for humans.
This gap between study type and real-world applicability is exactly why I built vital-stack.com for supplement interactions in my database, I surface the study type and mechanism alongside the conclusion, so you can judge how much weight to give it.
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?