Caption: This illustration from an 1887 book shows the fabled "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary," a plant once believed to ripen into a baby sheep. The plant now shows promise for treating osteoporosis. Posted on 03/31/2010 10:04:40 AM PDT by decimon
Caption: This illustration from an 1887 book shows the fabled "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary," a plant once believed to ripen into a baby sheep. The plant now shows promise for treating osteoporosis.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Usage Restrictions: None
The "vegetable lamb" plant — once believed to bear fruit that ripened into a living baby sheep — produces substances that show promise in laboratory experiments as new treatments for osteoporosis, the bone-thinning disease. That's the conclusion of a new study in ACS' monthly Journal of Natural Products.
Young Ho Kim and colleagues point out that osteoporosis is a global health problem, affecting up to 6 million women and 2 million men in the United States alone. Doctors know that the secret to strong bones involves a delicate balance between two types of bone cells: Osteoblasts, which build up bone, and osteoclasts, which break down bone.
Seeking potential medications that might tip the balance in favor of bone building, the researchers turned to the "vegetable lamb" plant as part of a larger study plants used in folk medicine in Vietnam. In the 16th and 17th centuries, some of the world's most celebrated scientists believed the plant (Cibotium barmoetz) fruited into a newly born lamb, which then grazed on nearby grass and weeds. Kim's group isolated compounds from C. barmoetz and showed that they blocked formation of bone-destroying osteoclasts formation in up to 97 percent of the cells in laboratory cultures without harmful effects on other cells. The substances "could be used in the development of therapeutic targets for osteoporosis," the article notes.
###
ARTICLE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE "Inhibitors of Osteoclast Formation from Rhizomes of Cibotium barometz"
DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/np9004097
CONTACT: Young Ho Kim, Ph.D. Chungnam National University Daejeon, Korea Phone: 82-42-821-5933 Email: yhk@cnu.ac.kr
Salience of the lambs ping.
Extremely good play! ( Anthony would approve!) LOL! I had to look it up for actual meaning...and now I know that anything that stands out among it neighbors, causing a focus of attention, could be described as salient. Thanks.
Al Gore: "The scientists reached consensus!"
I got a whole yard full of them damn things.
Round-up destroys them.
Lambs? Ah, spring lamb.
Now we know where liberals come from.
Fabled ‘vegetable lamb’ plant contains potential treatment for sexual deviants
A neighboe of mine - she was 4 years old at the time, burried some lamb chops, thinking it would grow into a lamb chop tree. Is that salient?
Oh my gosh, my second great laugh of the day on FR...I am convulsed over here.
I would say so...:^) She was certainly focused on the task at hand. Did any accidental liberals develop instead of lambs or lamb chops?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.