A couple days ago, I was doing some caption-decoding in my chemistry book, and I got a possible coded message that said, ""TEA-(read backwards, as was the pattern for possible messages in this particular caption)DRTZVWB." To me, this looked like "tea dirt 's VWB," so I looked up possible meanings for VWB. I got a hit that made sense in "Von Willebrand" (VWB) disease.
"Von Willebrand disease is a bleeding disorder caused by the qualitative or quantitative deficiency of the pro-von Willebrand factor. Affected people may complain of excessive bruising, prolonged bleeding from mucosal surfaces, and prolonged bleeding after minor trauma....The pro-von Willebrand factor propeptide then undergoes cleavage, and then both the propeptide and mature von Willebrand factor are secreted into the vessel lumen. It functions as a carrier for factor VIII to maintain its levels and help in platelet adhesion and binding to endothelial components after a vascular injury. Any qualitative or quantitative deficiency of pro-von Willebrand factor will lead to an increased bleeding tendency, and this syndrome is called Von Willebrand disease....Low von Willebrand factor is quite common in the general population, but not all patients have clinically significant bleeding issues. Therefore, a significant proportion of the patient population goes undiagnosed.
"Von Willebrand Disease," Ayan Sabih; Hani M. Babiker, online at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459222/.
In other words, Von Willebrand disease is where the blood doesn't coagulate, or clot, as well, and so there is excessive bleeding from nosebleeds, period bleeding, etc.
Why does this look like a coded message? Because compared to western Europe and the USA, Von Willebrand disease is relatively uncommon in China (see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24968688/) and other southeast Asian countries that are also high tea (Camellia sinensis) consuming countries. But VWB disease prevalence is comparatively higher in Japan than in those other Asian countries (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hae.14804), and in Japan they tend to focus more on green tea varieties than on black tea. The two types of tea differ in that green tea is not allowed to darken from the activity of the enzyme polyphenol oxidase in the tea leaves while black tea is. (See https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/polyphenol-oxidase for information on this enzyme.) Tea leaves are a good source of manganese if the tea plants are grown in dirt that contains manganese:
Tea drinking is a major source of dietary Mn and intakes commonly exceed proposed adequate intake values of 1.8–2.3 mg Mn/day and, on occasion, exceed upper limits of 10–11 mg/day. Dietary Mn intake has little influence on markers of Mn status or expression of Mn-dependent enzymes. Fasting whole blood Mn levels and leucocyte expression of MnSOD could, together, be further investigated as markers of Mn status.
"Influence of tea drinking on manganese intake, manganese status and leucocyte expression of MnSOD and cytosolic aminopeptidase P", 2005, https://www.nature.com/articles/1602260
A result of oxidizing manganese-containing molecules should be manganese oxide, or MnO, if I understand the chemistry correctly. That means there are manganese (II) (i.e., Mn2+) ions. (See also "Biosynthesis and antibacterial activity of manganese oxide nanoparticles prepared by green tea extract," 2022, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215017X22000285 for an intentional use of green tea to get manganese oxide particles.)
Mn2+ ions are effective at promoting blood coagulation activity by the above-highlighted Factor VIII:
Factor VIII-light chain (FVIII-LC) and Factor VIII-heavy chain (FVIII-HC) were isolated separately from human plasma and were without coagulation activity. When FVIII-LC and FVIII-HC preparations were mixed, coagulation activity was generated in the presence of Mn2+, Ca2+, or Co2+. Mn2+ was most effective and with Ca2+ maximal activity was first obtained after 8 days.
"Generation of active coagulation factor VIII from isolated subunits," 1988, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3121624/, full .pdf online at https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(19)57273-8/pdf.
Thus "tea-dirt's-VWB" appears to be an encoded message saying that the manganese (II)--as Mn2+ ions-- in oxidized tea leaves can help blood clot quickly.* That is useful information. In bandages, we might want to put some Mn2+ ions on the cloth/paper sections that touch wounds in order to help encourage blood coagulation. On the other hand, to combat excessive internal blood clotting, we also might want to avoid ingesting or inhaling a lot of Mn2+ ions if we are worried about clotting ailments such as deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolisms.
* Today I decoded another message that also points to this helpfulness of manganese ions in blood clotting. It was KLUHAHOUWNMHAUW". Taking out the two words "KLUH" ("clue") and "HAU" ("haw"), I'm left with AHOUWNMW. Applying doubles-cancellation, I get AHOUNM. Applying the OL ring cipher, the last part becomes either AHFMN or ZSUNM. I think that "clue" is to indicate that a clue is hidden in this string of letters, and the "haw" references Chinese hawthorn, used in traditional medicine there. AHFMN looks like "anti-hemophilic factor" (AHF) and manganese (MN). ZSUNM looks like a reference to the sun and the letter M, which are two common motifs in encoded messages. As in a previous post, I admit the possibility that I might be reading too much into a string of letters, but it does start off with "KLUH" and the science behind using manganese for blood clotting is established by the 1988 "Generation of active coagulation factor VIII from isolated subunits" research article.
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