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Elephants use medicinal plants to treat themselves, researchers find

wiredgorilla — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 11:42:42 +0000

Mount Elgon Foundation

Victoria Gill

Science correspondent

8 hours ago

African elephants use dozens of different medicinal plants to treat themselves and their families when they are sick.

This is the conclusion of a study which interviewed people who live and work alongside the elephants in the Mount Elgon region of Kenya.

These particular animals have long intrigued scientists with their extraordinary behaviour – they are known as salt-mining elephants, because they go into caves and scrape the rock with their tusks to extract minerals for their diet.

This newly published research suggests that the same elephants use several different plant species in the forest for medicinal purposes.

Mount Elgon Foundation

One of the lead researchers, Dr Elodie Freymann from Brown University in the US, said the study raised the question of whether destruction of forest habitat deprives animals – and humans – of the medicines they need to thrive.

“This shows just how entangled our medicines are with the non-human world,” Dr Freymann told BBC News.

Medicine for baby elephants

S Powles

The scientists collaborated with the conservation charity the Mount Elgon Foundation. They interviewed local people, including wildlife scouts and community elders.

Accounts described elephants selecting particular plants when they seemed unwell, and mothers reportedly giving medicinal plant material to their calves.

From this, the researchers concluded that the elephants use 35 different plant species, and that 25 of those are known locally to have medicinal uses.

Wild chimpanzees filmed using forest ‘first aid’
Wounded orangutan seen using plant as medicine

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, did not name the interviewees – keeping participants anonymous so they felt free to share their stories.

Their accounts reveal some intriguing details. In one testimony, a wildlife scout described seeing elephants using a plant known as Angurweet “as medicine to give to babies”.

Angurweet is used as a remedy for ailments including stomach ache. The scout, who described elephant mothers mixing it in their mouths – “removing the leaves and chewing it until smooth, along with the roots of some other trees”.

He also recounted that he had seen mothers mix this plant material with their own milk. “They give it to the babies, who chew on it themselves and spit out the solids”.

Professor Michael Huffman, a primatologist based in Japan, currently at Nagasaki University, said this particular account was “tantalising”, but more evidence would be needed to prove that elephants provided bespoke medical treatment for their calves.

The scientists have already embarked on gathering that evidence – giving the local wildlife experts they worked with cameras to record the behaviour they witness.

They are also analysing plants that the elephants use – looking for new medicines that the elephants themselves may have discovered.

Another lead reearcher on the project, Dr Fabien Schultz from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, told BBC News: “Local knowledge has given us a map”.

“We [now] want to follow the elephants and investigate whether they select particular plants in particular health contexts, and whether those plants have relevant biological activity.”

Fabien Schultz

Natural medicine factories

Many animals treat themselves with plants and other natural remedies.

The earliest scientific accounts of elephants practicing “self-medication” date back to the early third century.

Roman author Claudius Aelian in his text De Natura Animalium (On the Nature of Animals) described an elephant that, after being wounded by spears and arrows, consumed flowers and oil from an olive tree. The elephant made a full recovery.

Centuries later, these scientists are delving into what we can learn from wildlife about the properties of plants in the forest habitats they evolved in.

“There are medicine-producing organisms on this planet that have this incredible capability,” Dr Freymann told BBC News.” Medicine factories that exist all around us.”

Christopher Powles

Prof Huffman, who was not involved in this study, added: “We now know that mosquitoes and drosophila (flies) self-medicate, bees self-medicate, as do many other species all the way up the evolutionary ladder to the great apes of Africa and Asia.

“WIth each new species studied, we have gained a greater understanding of our medicinal past.”

For Dr Freymann, the findings also contain a lesson for our future.

“So many of the medicines we buy in a pharmacy were derived from compounds from trees, algae, from fungi, from coral reefs.

“It’s a win-win for us to protect these forests and keep those natural pharmacies around… long enough that we can discover new natural products that could save us down the line.”

Fruit and honey fuelled the early evolution of the human brain

wiredgorilla — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 20:09:38 +0000

Intelligence is an energetically expensive luxury – as the rise of artificial intelligence has reminded us. The human brain is no exception.

Comprising roughly 2% of the body weight, it uses one fifth the body’s energy in the resting state – compared with less than half of this in non-human primates. A five-year-old child devotes 66% of the energy they need to stay alive to their brain.

How did our ancestors foot the energy bill to run their uniquely large brains? Eating more meat is often considered to be the answer. But there’s a catch. The brain relies on a form of fuel that is not present in meat: glucose.

Our new study, published today in Science, shows that carbohydrates contributed more than half our total energy requirements over four million years of evolution. It holds important clues for why we crave sweet foods today – and how we can eat more healthily.

The matter of meat

Many anthropologists have credited meat eating as the stimulus to produce a large brain. After all, it required tools to butcher the carcass and access the fat-rich marrow inside bones.

Protein and fat in fruit and leaves are dilute, requiring hours of chewing, while animal foods are dense sources that can be devoured quickly. Bone marrow is a rich source of essential fats.

In truth, humans do not require more protein as a proportion of energy than other primates.

Our increasingly large brains and high reproductive rate demanded carbohydrate calories (found in plants but not meat), while our taller and heavier bodies needed fat calories to move those big muscles.

Although the body can synthesise glucose from precursors such as amino acids, the process is finite and energetically inefficient. Furthermore, there are limits on using just protein as fuel. For example, it can lead to a type of poisoning known as “rabbit starvation”.

A minimum amount of dietary carbohydrate was necessary. Our new study shows that, for much of evolution, the sugars in fruit and honey were the source.

Modelling ancient diets

We modelled the diets of hominins – the group consisting of humans and our immediate ancestors – over four million years of evolution.

First, we calculated overall demand for glucose by the organs and tissues which use it as their primary source of energy. Apart from the brain, red blood cells and the kidneys require glucose.

We then accounted for reproductive needs. The fetus and placenta use glucose not just as an energy source but as a structural component of growing tissues. Synthesis of DNA, RNA and nerve cell membranes requires glucose. During lactation, women use about 80g of glucose each day to produce the sugars in human milk.

Then we modelled the availability of macronutrients – carbohydrates, fats and proteins – from foods, starting with the diminutive ancient ape known as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis).

This early ancestor of ours walked on two legs, and was likely to be a ripe fruit specialist like chimpanzees today. Over two thirds of her energy came from naturally-occurring sugars.

Indeed, some scientists think frugivory – a feeding strategy primarily characterised by eating fruit – kick-started the evolution of large brains because, living in tropical forests, our ancestors required good cognition to remember when and where the best fruits were ripening. They needed strategic thinking to beat the birds and other competitors.

We finished up with the known diet composition of contemporary human foragers in warm climates. In six incremental steps, we incorporated increasing proportions of animal-based food, starting with 5% of calories and finishing with 35–50%.

Around one million years ago, mastery of fire allowed cooked starch, which unlike raw starch can be easily digested to provide glucose, to replace some of the sugars. Relatively recently, about 100,000 years ago, grinding stones and hearths indicate that the starch inside cereal grains became more accessible.

Lessons for modern diets

Did early hominins consume sufficient carbohydrate to cover the obligatory demands of the brain and other tissues? Yes, if you were a male, but only just if you were a pregnant female.

As we ventured out of tropical environments into cold and arid territory, the intake of carbohydrates would have become limiting. Plants would be plentiful, along with protein and marrow fat, but fruit and honey would be seasonal.

We speculate that limited amounts of dietary carbohydrate selected for genes that result in higher blood glucose levels. This would improve the growth and future survival of the fetus.

Today, the same genes likely predispose us to type two diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Low carbohydrate diets may therefore be helpful in specific clinical contexts.

But our findings provide an evolutionary explanation why healthy humans require about half their energy as carbohydrates. They also give us insight into why humans crave sweetness – a pleasurable signal on the tongue that encouraged foods that fuelled the mind and body millions of years ago.

Intrinsically, sugars are highly reactive molecules that are bundled in nature with antioxidants and other natural compounds that reduce harm within the cell.

Ideally, we consume them in that form – as fruit – rather than refined sugars.

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Olestra Chips: The ’90s Snack That WREAKED HAVOC

wiredgorilla — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:15:12 +0000

Before we figured out diet foods.

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