| AskScience AMA Series: Hi! We're experts from the National Institutes of Health, the National Toxicology Program, and the American Botanical Council studying the quality, safety, and effectiveness of botanical dietary supplements and essential oils. Ask us anything! Posted: 08 Nov 2019 04:00 AM PST Botanical dietary supplements, sometimes called herbals or herbal dietary supplements, and essential oils are products made from plants, plant parts, or plant extracts. One study found that natural products, including botanical dietary supplements, are used by approximately 15% of adults and are widely available in the United States. In fact, according to the American Botanical Council, Americans spent a total of $8.8 billion on botanical dietary supplements in 2018. But, just because a product is from a plant source and sold in stores or online, doesntt mean it's safe. The safety of a botanical or essential oil depends on many things, such as its chemical makeup, how it works in the body, how it is prepared, and the dose used. The amount of scientific evidence available for various botanical supplement ingredients varies widely, in part, because product safety is not tested by FDA and federal law does not require dietary supplements be tested for effectiveness before they are marketed. Studying the potential effects of botanical dietary supplements has several unique challenges. For example, all botanical dietary supplements contain a complex mixture of ingredients, making it difficult to identify and link active ingredients to health effects. Growing, harvesting, and processing conditions can also affect the chemical makeup of a botanical supplement, leading to challenges in manufacturing identical products batch after batch. Possible contaminants - either accidental or intentional via adulteration - in botanical dietary supplements (e.g. heavy metals, microbes, undeclared ingredients, or pesticides) needs to be determined as part of routine quality control since these can affect its safety. Our hosts today are all experts on studying the quality, safety, and/or efficacy of botanical dietary supplements and essential oils to better understand how to use them more safely and effectively. - Stefan Gafner, Ph.D., is the Chief Science Officer at the American Botanical Council (ABC). He answers many of the inquiries from ABC members, in particular those relating to quality control and analytical methods. As technical director of the Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP), he writes and/or edits the Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program publications and ensures the accuracy of the content published by the Program. Stefan grew up in Switzerland, and, on rare occasions, you may actually hear him yodel (or at least trying to).
- D. Craig Hopp, Ph.D., is the Deputy Director of the Division of Extramural Research at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Here, he manages several large-scale projects such as research centers focused on drug-natural product interactions and centers focused on improved natural product technologies. He also provides scientific leadership in the NCCIH research portfolio on the biological activities of natural products, including studies in preclinical models for a wide variety of potential clinical indications. Craig is an avid DIY-er who has completed several major renovations around his home and handles all his own automotive repairs.
- Adam Kuszak, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist Administrator in the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) at NIH and Director of the ODS Analytical Methods and Reference Materials Program (AMRM). Through AMRM, Dr. Kuszak works to support scientific resource development and promote biomedical research on the mechanisms and health effects of dietary supplements and natural products. In his free time, Adam has a passion for exploring the world through photography, and for world-building through modeling.
- Tyler Ramsey, B.S., is a second-year medical school student at Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine and a former postbaccalaureate research fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), also part of NIH. His research looks at essential oil components and their potential link to breast growth in young boys and girls (i.e. prepubertal gynecomastia and premature thelarche). Tyler is the vice president of his medical school and enjoys spending his free time in the gym or taking a walk with his 3-year old golden retriever.
- Cynthia Rider, Ph.D., is a toxicologist in the Toxicology Branch of the National Toxicology Program (NTP), headquartered at NIEHS. In this role, she leads an effort to characterize the effects of botanical dietary supplements studied in NTP's testing program. NTP conducts toxicology studies in animal models to understand what happens once the supplement enters the body. Cynthia spent her formative years on a tiny Pacific Island, Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, which is currently threatened by global warming and rising sea levels.
We'll be on to answer questions at 1 pm ET (18 UT), ask us anything! submitted by /u/AskScienceModerator [link] [comments] |
| Why is varicella more dangerous to get as you grow older? Posted: 08 Nov 2019 06:19 AM PST |
| If dark matter has no electromagnetic interactions, does that mean it could move right through regular matter? Posted: 08 Nov 2019 05:21 AM PST My understanding is that the fact that I can't put my finger through a table is actually the result of electromagnetic interactions between the molecules of my finger and the molecules of the table. If dark matter has no electromagnetic interactions, does that mean it could "phase" through baryonic matter? submitted by /u/Shotstopper [link] [comments] |
| How (by natural processes) are nutrients added and changes made in an area of soil over time to make it fertile? Posted: 08 Nov 2019 04:10 AM PST |
| Just how dangerous is radiation in space? Posted: 08 Nov 2019 03:27 AM PST Space news websites often post new articles about the danger of space radiation to Mars astronauts, and often describe the radiation levels as completely prohibitive. NASA does that, too, but often in very vague terms, like "we need to know more" or "more research is needed". On the other hand, people like Robert Zubrin, Elon Musk, etc., acknowledge the existence of an elevated background level, but completely dismisses the notion that it should preclude humans from traveling to Mars. These people often refer to actual studies, and never say that more research is needed. In fact, Robert Zubrin insists that no more research is needed. So who's right? submitted by /u/oz1sej [link] [comments] |
| How can the wave function of a s-orbital not vanish in a H-Atom? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 05:04 PM PST Hi guys, an electron in a s-orbital of a H Atom has a non vanishing wave function and probability to be at r =0. How can that be possible, if the coulomb potential diverges there? Thanks for your help! submitted by /u/drrost [link] [comments] |
| Why does azurite turn dark/black when exposed to large amounts of sunlight? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 10:58 PM PST |
| On the level of hardware, how do pointers work? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 07:05 PM PST So I understand that when I'm writing a linked list, and a node points to another node, it is the memory address where the first node is stored pointing to another. So like if you have a table of memory addresses, if the first node is stored at memory location n and the second node is stored at memory location k, you would just have to iterate (k-n) times through the table (from node n) to get to location k. However, I'd assume that in a real system, you may sometimes run into a problem where weirdly spaced blocks of this memory table have been allocated to other programs. More formally, if I have a memory demand of k memory units for some program x, and there is already an allocated block of memory for some program z starting at (address k minus some non-zero constant y) and ending at an address n s.t n>k; will my memory assignment program try to reallocate the memory for z or will it split the memory for program x into blocks 1:(0,k-y) and 2:(n,k)? If it is the latter then doesn't that present a routing problem? As in if my memory circuit is laid out in vertical rows where the height of each row is (length of memory address table/number of rows), and i have a large gap between blocks 1 and 2(one that may even span multiple rows), at some point,I hypothesize that it may become quicker to traverse the memory circuit horizontally rather than to iterate through the entire block of program z-s allocated memory. TL;DR: Can a memory circuit be visualized as a linked list? Does memory always reallocate? If it doesn't, does traversing the memory circuit linearly between referenced memory locations impose a demand on processing power? Why can't we (or do we) produce circuits where memory units are laid out in a "complete graph" configuration where every unit is connected to every other unit? submitted by /u/moog500 [link] [comments] |
| Do dog behaviours show cultural variation depending on geographic origin? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 05:45 PM PST We ran a shelter for Balkan street dogs. As I had little knowledge of dogs up to that point, I assumed what I learned from these dogs was 'how dogs were'. When we returned home, we brought two emotionally damaged dogs, as they had no alternative but death. This meant a lot of training, and work with a behaviourist, which is where the question comes from. All the soft-eared dogs we sheltered carried their ears pressed back high on the skull, letting the tips fall loose, with the inside of the ear facing out, when relaxed. When angry or stressed, their ears would be lower and pressed straight back, with the inside facing inward to the skull -- a quite different placement. The behaviourist insisted that any time a dog pressed its ears back it was unhappy/threatened. Despite any progress the dogs made, every visit consisted of her telling me how I was failing these dogs because they were so stressed. Eventually, I just stopped going. It's a decade later. The dogs, now well adapted and trained, still carry their ears folded at all times unless they are specifically interested in something right ahead of them, or I am talking with them: then the ears are up and forward, like a collie. As they age, I am wondering whether or not I've given them the best I could, and those ears still puzzle and, I admit, upset me. Is it possible the street dogs of the Balkans simply have a different culture, one in which laid back ears can communicate different things depending on the way in which they are laid back? Is there research on dog postural communication that takes into account differing geographic/situational origins? All I have been able to find looks at North American or Western European dogs who come from generations of domestic canines, while these are Eastern Europeans who come from generations of semi-feral, often abused dogs. I'd be grateful for any knowledge you can share. submitted by /u/Mrs_Cosmopolite [link] [comments] |
| What do deaf people have as an internal voice if they have never heard language? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 07:15 AM PST |
| Would a large sauropod die if it fell over? Wouldn’t its massive weight crush its ribs? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 03:25 AM PST |
| What did the Earth look and feel like at the height of the Permian Extinction? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 08:08 AM PST I believe it killed some huge percent (like 80 to 90) of all life on earth and it took millions of years to begin to recover. I believe it was caused in part by a massive volcanic event which spewed so much methane and co2 into the atmosphere that it cause rapid global warming that life couldn't cope with. Were there plants and land animals at this time in earths history? Were there forests? What did the continents look like? Did the great dying cause most of the land to turn into desert? What was the average temp during this time? What about the oceans, were there fish or coral life yet? I have so many questions about what youd see and feel if you could go back to the peak of the Permian extinction and just experience Earth in it's most disaster state. submitted by /u/HailMePls [link] [comments] |
| What would the Voyager probes look like now? Posted: 06 Nov 2019 08:00 PM PST In the 40+ years since their launching, after traveling through the solar system and now beyond, what would the Voyager probes look like today if we could see them up close? Would they look any noticeably different, namely due to any damage from space travel (dust/debris/rays/etc)? submitted by /u/Coldblackice [link] [comments] |
| How does a global shutter in a camera work? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 03:32 AM PST I understand how rolling shutters work, from an engeneering point of view, but how exactly do you expose the entire sensor at once? submitted by /u/ChillDolphin [link] [comments] |
| You know how latex balloons have a distinct smell to them? What is it that you're smelling? Posted: 06 Nov 2019 08:32 PM PST |
| Can defibrillators revive someone who has been pronounced legaly dead? Posted: 06 Nov 2019 10:16 PM PST |
