Imagine the treatment for some cancers growing in our forests. Or powerful drugs for herpes, HIV or liver disease.
How about a natural source of biodegradable plastic, skin conditioner or mosquito repellent? Or maybe a non-toxic pesticide or fungicide for gardens?
Behold the birch tree, which someday might serve as a medicine chest for the world.
A group of scientists from Duluth, Minn., is extracting a chemical from birch bark that appears to hold incredible potential for fighting diseases. It has been slow to develop, but the first commercial success may be near.
Later this month, a factory near Duluth will begin making processed birch bark pellets that laboratories can refine into betulin, the active compound in birch that holds so much promise.
Birch bark is abundant, cheap, holds about 1,000 compounds and its betulin "is non-toxic, it's versatile, it's very active and we can get the basic material for almost free," said Robert Carlson, University of Minnesota Duluth chemistry professor and a pioneer researcher of betulin.
It appeared betulin's first success would be a herpes virus medicine. Lab and animal research showed betulin was incredibly effective at treating herpes.
"One of the reasons we kept looking at birch is that the very first thing we tried it on, herpes, it worked. That doesn't happen very often," Carlson said.
Birch is also proberbly the most common (tree) allergy
We think it is one of the many things my middle grandola
is allergic to it and the road they live in is avenued by birch.
There is one right outside the kitchen window.
He is also allergic to the chlorine in our water
and is a permanent weeping sore.
Bet Pendula is also one of my favourite trees.
We have an abundance of them here and I would love to go down the road and retrieve some sap but I think I might possibly get into a lil bit of trouble.
You had me doubting myself there woman.
The one outside your house is Betula pendula (Silver Birch/European White Birch)
and yes I think you should sap it in the middle of the night
the neighbours wont notice if you approach it with caution from the right LMAO.
I was gobsmacked when I looked on the net how they were all saying other
(there are at least 9) different birch trees were Bet pen.
The others are a completely different shape.
Some still have beautiful barks but I love the 'pendula' branches.
This really hit home to me that it shows just how much you really can't trust the internet.
I know I only did a quick search but I couldn't find one Bet pen.
This is why I think it is so important to use Latin names for plants
especially when we are eating them or using them medicinally.
I really look forward to the day my veg has the latin name on it in Sainsbury but not very likely has they
have mostly had the hell bred out of them.
This really hit home to me that it shows just how much you really can't trust the internet.
You said a mouf full. The Internet is the largest repository of credible (and incredible) information the world has ever seen. Its impact on society is second only to the invention of the Gutenberg press. But extreme discernment must be used when using (and relying on) anything one finds on the Internet.
Today, there are more than 15,000 places to find health information on the Internet. According to a Harris poll, more than 60 million people searched for health information online last year.
This birch sap job 4dharma has given me - I find it's not the usual V-shaped cut with a cup tied to the bottom of the V.
I have to drill a hole - ?diameter - then insert a grooved rod into the hole, then have sufficient storage capacity in the bucket (!!) to catch somewhere between 2 - 4 quarts.
Bit of a challenge, right there. After that, the hole has to be plugged with resin, to stop further leakage of sap, and damage to the health of the tree.
What resin?. Would beeswax do instead? I've got some of that.
Iggy's reference to biting the canoes is about a different type of Betula - birch. The betula papyracia
Birch bark studied as new drug source
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