Finding solid sources on this took some time. This is one of those topics that crosses into marketing, resulting in a lots of unsupported claims. Several years ago I tried to find such information when working with cannabis growers and couldn’t find much information.
Terpene production does appear to be heavily influenced by microbial populations (they are common microbial metabolites). That type of research in field will take longer to produce since there are so many variables. Whereas the direct application of a known terpene can be lab and/or field tested to measure its effectiveness. Funding will direct that area of research. This would be a great topic to investigate in another 5 or 10 years to see what has been discovered.
You’ll notice when I do references, I’ll post the DOI (when able) and a link to where I found the full article. Although much can be gleaned from abstracts, the full paper explains the rest of the story.
It's going to take a while to read all your references. It's a fascinating post with a useful, simplified view of how plant terpenes might eventually be correlated with specific clinical outcome, i.e. according to the Western concept of medicine. I've studied St.John's Wort in vivo, and 3 people of African descent/higher skin pigment levels, had severe photosensitivity reactions. Not for the indication of depression, however. The role of terpenoids in soil health and pathogen resistance might be an interesting angle on elucidating why plants have the capacity to be therapeutic agents. That's just my current area of interest. I''l jump back into the discussion next week, but thanks again for posting this article!
Also, all of your references save for the Wink paper are Open Access. Bravo! Thank You!
Hi Ken,
Thanks for your input.
Finding solid sources on this took some time. This is one of those topics that crosses into marketing, resulting in a lots of unsupported claims. Several years ago I tried to find such information when working with cannabis growers and couldn’t find much information.
Terpene production does appear to be heavily influenced by microbial populations (they are common microbial metabolites). That type of research in field will take longer to produce since there are so many variables. Whereas the direct application of a known terpene can be lab and/or field tested to measure its effectiveness. Funding will direct that area of research. This would be a great topic to investigate in another 5 or 10 years to see what has been discovered.
You’ll notice when I do references, I’ll post the DOI (when able) and a link to where I found the full article. Although much can be gleaned from abstracts, the full paper explains the rest of the story.
Thank you for your conversation,
Eric
It's going to take a while to read all your references. It's a fascinating post with a useful, simplified view of how plant terpenes might eventually be correlated with specific clinical outcome, i.e. according to the Western concept of medicine. I've studied St.John's Wort in vivo, and 3 people of African descent/higher skin pigment levels, had severe photosensitivity reactions. Not for the indication of depression, however. The role of terpenoids in soil health and pathogen resistance might be an interesting angle on elucidating why plants have the capacity to be therapeutic agents. That's just my current area of interest. I''l jump back into the discussion next week, but thanks again for posting this article!
Also, all of your references save for the Wink paper are Open Access. Bravo! Thank You!