A curious twist of evolution - plant toxins and addiction
Interesting article at
Physorg:
Researchers stumped by drug addiction paradox
From chocolate and caffeine to nicotine and cocaine, many of our most addictive foods and drugs come from plant toxins. Considering that plants originally developed these toxins to deter herbivorous predators, it�s ironic that humans and other mammals don�t merely tolerate the toxins, but can crave them and even develop dependencies on them.
This paradox, presented by researchers in a new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, works both ways: supposedly, the plants should never have developed toxins that reward animals for eating them, and humans should never have developed a reward mechanism for toxic plants.
Curious -- the full paper is here:
Revealing the paradox of drug reward in human evolution (11 page PDF)
Posted by DaveH at April 17, 2008 8:25 PM