ReviewPhytotherapy research : PTR2020
From sunscreens to medicines: Can a dissipation hypothesis explain the beneficial aspects of many plant compounds?
Review in Phytotherapy research : PTR, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Are we trapped on Earth: space and accelerated ageing.NPJ microgravity · 2025Review
- Endogenous Plant signals and human Health: Molecular mechanisms, ecological functions, and therapeutic Prospects.Biochemistry and biophysics reports · 2025Review
- The concept of biophotonic signaling in the human body and brain: rationale, problems and directions.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2025Review
- The use of NADH anisotropy to investigate mitochondrial cristae alignment.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Ultra weak photon emission-a brief review.Frontiers in physiology · 2024Review
- The impact of cannabinoid receptor 1 absence on mouse liver mitochondria homeostasis: insight into mitochondrial unfolded protein response.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Article
- Informing the Cannabis Conjecture: From Life's Beginnings to Mitochondria, Membranes and the Electrome-A Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Understanding Long COVID; Mitochondrial Health and Adaptation-Old Pathways, New Problems.Biomedicines · 2022Review
- Bioelectric Fields at the Beginnings of Life.Bioelectricity · 2022Review
- Cannabidiol Modulates Mitochondrial Redox and Dynamics in MCF7 Cancer Cells: A Study Using Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy of NAD(P)H.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2021Article
- SARS-CoV-2 and mitochondrial health: implications of lifestyle and ageing.Immunity & ageing : I & A · 2020Review
- From sunscreens to medicines: Can a dissipation hypothesis explain the beneficial aspects of many plant compounds?Phytotherapy research : PTR · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Medicine has utilised plant-based treatments for millennia, but precisely how they work is unclear. One approach is to use a thermodynamic viewpoint that life arose by dissipating geothermal and/or solar potential. Hence, the ability to dissipate energy to maintain homeostasis is a fundamental principle in all life, which can be viewed as an accretion system where layers of complexity have built upon core abiotic molecules. Many of these compounds are chromophoric and are now involved in multiple pathways. Plants have further evolved a plethora of chromophoric compounds that can not only act as sunscreens and redox modifiers, but also have now become integrated into a generalised stress adaptive system. This could be an extension of the dissipative process. In animals, many of these compounds are hormetic, modulating mitochondria and calcium signalling. They can also display anti-pathogen effects. They could therefore modulate bioenergetics across all life due to the conserved electron transport chain and proton gradient. In this review paper, we focus on well-described medicinal compounds, such as salicylic acid and cannabidiol and suggest, at least in animals, their activity reflects their evolved function in plants in relation to stress adaptation, which itself evolved to maintain dissipative homeostasis.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.