Meet British botanical Indiana Jones as she leads expeditions into Earth’s remote wildernesses in search of medicinal treasures… before using cutting-edge science to unlock their powers

Professor Geoff Abbott is a botanical Indiana Jones. He leads expeditions into the world’s wild places to find medicinal treasures: herbal remedies used by indigenous peoples that may contain life-saving chemicals that will revolutionize the treatments for serious conditions.

These expeditions take Geoff Abbott, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), to wilderness areas in the Mojave Desert and Yosemite National Park in the US, as well as to Hawaii, the Virgin Islands and along the Pacific coast . of Canada – all a long way from Norfolk, where he grew up.

“These are places where you need satellite phones and a survival kit, they are so remote,” he told Good Health.

Back in his laboratory, Professor Abbott is also investigating how staples such as rosemary, thyme, coriander, lavender and chamomile can treat conditions ranging from epilepsy, high blood pressure, infections and even drug addiction.

Herbal treatments are often dismissed by skeptics because they have no more scientific basis than witchcraft and spells.

But in his laboratory at UCI, Professor Abbott and his team are using cutting-edge science to reveal the powers of medicinal herbs.

In particular, they investigate how chemicals in traditionally used herbs can cure serious conditions by repairing faults in the microscopic electrical switches that permeate our bodies.

These electrical switches are called ion channels. They are found in the outer membranes of protein cells found throughout the human body and determine the strength of the electrical charges within them. The level of this charge in turn determines how the proteins work.

The proteins themselves play an essential role in regulating the electrical signals that enable our nervous system and organs such as the brain, heart and muscles to function.

Ion channel switches allow ions (atoms with an electrical charge) to enter protein cells when they need to be charged. The level of charge in the proteins determines how strongly the proteins interact with other elements of the nervous system.

What makes the bite of some spiders, scorpions or snakes so dangerous is that the venom can disrupt the ion channels of their victims and disable their nervous systems.

Likewise, when ion channel switches go wrong and become overactive or underactive, they can cause a range of diseases such as epilepsy, high blood pressure and even, it seems, drug addiction.

Professor Abbott’s work shows that chemicals in common herbs can repair ion switches that are malfunctioning for whatever reason – be it genetic errors, injury, disease or poisoning.

Some can cause underactive ion switches to function properly again; others turn off overactive switches.

“We have 2,000 botanical extracts that we are screening,” says Professor Abbott.

Some well-known plants are promising. For example, a study from his lab reported in the journal FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) found that coriander contains a chemical called dodecanal that can reduce epileptic seizures. Dodecanol changes ion channels in brain cells to make them less excitable – seizures can occur due to excessive excitability of brain cells.

Coriander has been used in folk medicine in Southeast Asia and North Africa for centuries to reduce seizures. It was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. But until this publication, no one knew scientifically how coriander worked for epilepsy.

Professor Abbott says: ‘This discovery could lead to more effective use of coriander as an anticonvulsant, or to modifications of dodecanol to develop more effective anticonvulsants.’

His research is often inspired by the continued use of medicinal herbs by indigenous people.

Recently, his team worked with the Kwakwaka’wakw people, who live on Canada’s Pacific coast, to pinpoint the molecular mechanism underlying their use of three different plants—stinging nettle, bladderwort kelp, and Pacific ninebark—to treat ataxia (a group of neurological disorders that affect balance, coordination and speech).

According to the charity Ataxia UK, at least 10,000 adults and 500 children in Britain have some form of it.

Professor Abbott’s team found two compounds in the plants – tannic acid and gallic acids – that can repair faulty ion channels in nerve proteins that cause symptoms.

‘These are the first plant compounds known to do this; no synthetic can do that,” says Professor Abbott. ‘You cannot swallow tannic acid, it will make you sick. But you can rub it into the skin. Gallic acid is of greater importance because it is already available without a prescription in supplements such as bladderwrack. Toxicity studies show it is safe.’

It is not clear why the Kwakwaka’wakw people needed a drug for ataxia, “but it may be because ataxia can be caused by infections,” says Professor Abbott.

‘They may also have been affected by taking hallucinogenic plants that are revered in indigenous medicine and shamanism, but which can cause ataxia if overdosed.’

Meanwhile, rosemary is showing promise as a treatment for cocaine addiction. It contains carnosic acid, which is already known to open ion channels in the brain.

Professor Abbott explains: ‘A colleague reported that he had discovered that the same ion channels in the brain were closed in laboratory mice addicted to cocaine.’

So Professor Abbott set up an experiment where mice could press a few bars to get a drink – one drink was dosed with cocaine, the other not.

‘The mice quickly learned to press the cocaine drink bar because it is more pleasant.’

But when the mice were given a dose of carnosic acid, they no longer chose the cocaine bar, according to results recently published in the journal Neuron.

Why would this work? One theory, says Professor Abbott, is that the acid releases memory formation in cocaine addicts whose memories are otherwise wired to make them obsessively crave the drug.

Rosemary has long been known for improving memory. ‘There is some evidence that it is worth trying rosemary extract to improve the results of memory tests,’ says Professor Abbott.

‘You can buy carnosic acid as a supplement. It crosses the body’s blood-brain barrier (which keeps out chemicals and infections) and so can indeed damage brain cells.’

Thyme also shows promise as a therapy against fungal infections that are becoming increasingly resistant to conventional medications.

Professor Abbott says: ‘Thyme has traditionally been used as a fungicide, but no one knew how it might work. We then discovered a small molecule in it that blocks an ion channel in candida fungal infections (for example thrush). Candida fungi only have one of these ion channels, so it is very important for them to stay alive.’

Candida fungi usually live harmlessly on the skin and in the mouth, throat, intestines and vagina. But they can cause an infection if they get out of control or get deep into the body. ‘Our tests show that a small molecule from thyme effectively stops candida albicans, the most common type,’ says Professor Abbott.

This is especially timely as Candida strains are increasingly developing resistance to conventional antifungal medications.

A newly emerging drug-resistant strain, Candida auris, was first identified in Japan in 2009. The pathogen has since spread to more than 40 countries, killing 30 to 60 percent of infected people.

In 2017, an outbreak at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust affected 70 patients. It took two and a half years to clear the hospital of the infection.

Humans and fungi share significant amounts of DNA – making it difficult to find antifungal drugs that kill the fungi without damaging human tissues, experts warn.

However, Professor Abt says: ‘The ion channel that the thyme molecule affects is not found in mammals. This means you can safely use it to kill candida infections without side effects.”

Now his team hopes to develop a synthetic and more potent version of the thyme molecule.

But while they delve into discovering the molecular mechanisms in herbs that could be therapeutic, “in reality it can sometimes be better to use the whole plant,” says Professor Abbott. ‘Our research often suggests that there may be other chemicals in the plants that work together with the chemicals we have found to make the botanical therapies more effective.’

So raid the pantry and, as the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates put it, “Make food your medicine.”