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Comment by nytesky | Hacker News Reader

Do some varieties have less nerve toxicity? Sloan recommends avoiding “chronic” use — unclear if that means weekly or what?

https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs....

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So the Annonaceous acetogenins are what's called mitochondrial complex I inhibitors. Basically the way they work is they cause a buildup of radical oxides within your mitochondria, which decrease how efficient your mitochondria are at producing energy. In small doses, this is probably a good thing -- you give your mitochondria a good workout, and then eventually some antioxidants clear out the radical oxides and your mitochondria end up stronger than before. But in sufficiently large doses, you will start killing off your mitochondria, and if you kill enough (likely over several decades) it will cause something called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, which is fatal.

The good news is that there is only one recorded case in history of someone who is suspected to have gotten PSP from eating pawpaws, a grower in New Jersey. The acetoenins in pawpaws have a fairly low bioavalability, so it's probably only a significant risk if you are 1) eating large quantities 2) doing something to increase the bioavailability of the acetogenins, e.g. cooking them with fat or maybe mixing them with alcohol.

If you eat moderate quantities out of hand, then most likely you are just reducing your cancer and diabetes risk, without taking on any increased risk of PSP. And since cancer and diabetes kill hundreds of times more people than PSP, overall eating them out of hand is almost certainly a net positive for your health -- especially when you compare them with the health effects of ice cream or whatever other dessert you'd have otherwise have been eating in their place.

That said, the cultivars that are specifically known to be low in acetogenins are: Sunflower, Wabash, Potomac, Zimmerman, Wells, Mango, Shenandoah.

Of these, the ones that are actually good are Wabash, Shenandoah, Sunflower, and Potomac. So if you just want to grow cultivars low in acetogenins, grow at least two of those four.

wow, thanks for the thorough reply. Atlanta's pawpaw population is taking off and they're fun to introduce to people, but I've been hesitant to do so more lately knowing that they may not be 100% good for you. seems like it's actually not so bad in moderation.

Yeah my personal rule of thumb is not to eat more than two per day and six per week, and to periodically check Google Scholar for new research. If you're going to cook with them, I'd recommend sticking to recipes that involve adding them to cooked food (e.g. as a layer on top of a cheesecake) rather than applying heat directly to them. And also to eat them only during the month or so per year that they're in season, rather than freezing them and eating them year round.

And if you haven't already seen it, here are Neal Peterson's recommendations for safe consumption:

https://www.petersonpawpaws.com/are-pawpaws-safe/

His recommendations are notable mainly because he's the one who kickstarted the pawpaw renaissance and released many of the most popular (and best) cultivars on the market today.

> Finally, and most importantly, do not inject pawpaw fruit directly into your veins.

Duly noted lol

Parents eat it at least once a week. They have a tree that bears so such it broke it's head off due to the load once when I was over there.The tree are hallow and not terribly strong. I think you're safe.

My wife hates the scent of the thing though.

I wonder if one might liken this to arsenic in apples. I tend to eat the whole apple, core, seeds, stem, but there's so little it's not a biggie.

Plants have to fight off bacteria after all.

even the stem??? and here i thought i was adventurous for not peeling carrots and potatoes

Oh I don't stop until I reach the root of the tree.

Gave me a good laugh.

Wait till you learn about the people that eat kiwi fruits with the skin on...

> cooking them with fat or maybe mixing them with alcohol.

Taking notes carefully, thanks

> the ones that are actually good are Wabash, Shenandoah, Sunflower, and Potomac

Well's delight is a four of five stars so, over average. Shenandoah that tastes like a banana is maybe a 4.5. Sunflower (said to have also a bland banana taste) could be maybe a 3.5.

but it depends a lot of the ripeness, the number of fruits in the tree (Prolific by comparison is a 'one star over five', but... lots of fruits) and the personal taste. Ripeness is a trait that is tricky to realize. As a rule of thumb, if it has black spots is overripe.

The fruit can taste like a mix of caramel, vanille, bubblegum, pineapple, banana and poison (if overripe or wild variety). More or less depending on the variety.

To me the wild ones generally taste like a mix of unripe pear and diesel fuel. Extremely unpleasant, so it's no wonder that so many people who have tried pawpaws think they don't like them.

Dinitrophenol[1][2] has been used by bodybuilders for similar increased mitochondrial energy expenditure to burn more fat.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dinitrophenol [2] https://portlandpress.com/biochemj/article-abstract/111/4/43...?

> decrease how efficient your mitochondria are at producing energy

So basically, a natural DNP?

I'm not familiar with DNP, I'd have to look into it more. I have read a lot of the research on metformin, because that is also suspected to act like a mitochondrial complex I inhibitor in some circumstances. (Although it seems to act different ways in different situations, so no one really knows what's going on there yet.) But regardless, Peter Attia considered metformin to be a longevity drug (at least before he decided it might be hurting his muscle growth), so there may be a lot of precedent for using mitochondrial complex I inhibitors for health benefits, assuming metformin actually has that mechanism of action.

Art DeVany in his book, "The New Evolutionary Diet".

States that almost all plant foods contain some toxins. A solution he provides is that we should always eat a variety of plant foods, i.e change plant food almost every meal.

That way, your body never accumulates any single toxin in large or dangerous quantities.

Was the book better than your advice? Because that is pretty generic advice that has the potential to be dangerous(Chem engineer here). Don't eat the cancerous part of the vegetable EVER.

Sure I know of anti-nutrients, but reading more about this guy, seems like its just a rando's opinion. I'll take the rat studies please.

3 sentences can never fully fully depict what someone has written in an entire book of hundreds of pages. So I understand how you might have misinterpreted my statement.

I did not say that you should go out & proactively eat cancerous foods.

The book is a very practical book, my only regret is not having bought it earlier.

You should follow the strategy in consuming a variety of plant foods because.

a) It is practically impossible to know the toxins in all plants and thus avoid them proactively.

b) Like I said, almost all plant foods contain some toxins.

So either;

- you starve,

- you build up unhealthy toxins by eating the same plant foods daily

- or you can have many toxins at very (harmless) low levels. By constantly switching your plant food consumption.

DeVany's books is really good. If you like "rat studies" you will definitely like it.

I wonder if this is why I felt off, when I drank 4L of coconut oil.

This is pretty uncontroversial advice. In ecology, it's called being a "generalist". (And humans are generalists.)

If you want to avoid all toxins ever, you'll have to avoid... basically all food. Oxalic acid, cyanogenic glycosides, etc. are just freaking everywhere. Plants make defense compounds; we're able to handle small amounts of them.

Many types of beans, particularly red kidney beans, have some pretty nasty toxins in them if they are undercooked.

Which vegetables have cancerous parts?

Man, hadn't heard that name in a while. Looks like he's still around. His twitter points to his homepage, but that looks to have been taken over by someone with the same name. All of his stuff must be on facebook now, shame.

Dug pretty far back to get his older site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120103091953/http://arthurdeva...

Yes, some have less acetogenins than other. "Wells" for example. This trait is consistent inside the cultivar and between years.

It came with a more bland, less complex flavor (probably). Susquehanna has a high level of acetogenins but it ranks often among the top cultivars on flavor. Overleese also has a high acetogenin level

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