A household favorite, a loss-leader at the grocery store, a metaphor for psychiatric problems, a mainstay of comic slap stick, the banana has woven itself deeply into human affairs, on both gut and mental levels. And this relationship is at least 10,000 years old, as far as conscious human cultivation of the species goes

But, many do not realize that the banana is more than just an exceptionally starch-rich fruit, but has a complex biochemistry, with unique pharmacologically active properties which scientists have characterized.

Bananas actually contain the catecholamines dopamine[i] and norepinephrine,[ii] the very same adrenal hormones released in the human body when it undergoes the typical "fight-or-flight" response. It is believed that the banana plant uses the biosynthetic pathway for catecholamines when under the stress of attack to fight off infectious pathogens such as in crown rot disease.[iii] Some varieties excrete a form of serotonin in their sap, [iv] and there is even mention in the biomedical literature of the discovery of the NSAID drug naproxen (trade name Aleve) within the banana cultivar Musa acuminate.

Sound crazy? Well, that's to be expected from a fruit we commonly associate with a state of unbridled madness.