Compounds found in plants have long been of great interest to cancer researchers. We must never forget that about one-fifth of all chemotherapeutic agents (including Vincristine, Vinblastine, Etoposide, Teniposide, and Taxol) are ultimately derived from plant sources. Many of these took a long time to pass through the regulatory process, since serious research into botanical medicine often goes begging for financial and intellectual support. Starved of funds in this way, the riches of the natural world are often neglected by mainstream science, only to be plundered by less scrupulous organizations. The patient loses twice - by not having the fruits of serious research and by being deceived by slick operators posing as friends and benefactors. Some may even opt for unproven miracle juices in lieu of more certain therapies that might save their lives.

Mangosteen 

Garcinia mangostana L.

One of the most praised of tropical fruits, and certainly the most esteemed fruit in the family Guttiferae, the mangosteen, Garcinia mangostana L., is almost universally known or heard of by this name. There are numerous variations in nomenclature: among Spanish-speaking people, it is called mangostan; to the French, it is mangostanier, mangoustanier, mangouste or mangostier; in Portuguese, it is mangostao, mangosta or mangusta; in Dutch, it is manggis or manggistan; in Vietnamese, mang cut; in Malaya, it may be referred to in any of these languages or by the local terms, mesetor, semetah, or sementah; in the Philippines, it is mangis or mangostan. Throughout the Malay Archipelago, there are many different spellings of names similar to most of the above.

Food Value Per 100 g of Edible Portion* Calories 60-63 Moisture 80.2-84.9 g Protein 0.50-0.60 g Fat 0.1-0.6 g Total Carbohydrates 14.3-15.6 g Total Sugars 16.42-16.82 g (sucrose, glucose and fructose) Fiber 5.0-5.1 g Ash 0.2-0.23 g Calcium 0.01-8.0 mg Phosphorus 0.02-12.0 mg Iron 0.20-0.80 mg Thiamine 0.03 mg Ascorbic Acid 1.0-2.0 mg *Minimum/maximum values from analyses made in the Philippines and Washington, D.C.

Plate XLI: MANGOSTEEN, Garcinia mangostana—Painted by Dr. M.J. Dijkman

Despite early trials in Hawaii, the tree has not become well acclimatized and is still rare in those islands. Neither has it been successful in California. It encounters very unfavorable soil and climate in Florida. Some plants have been grown for a time in containers in greenhouses. One tree in a very protected coastal location and special soil lived to produce a single fruit and then succumbed to winter cold.

Despite the oft-repeated Old World enthusiasm for this fruit, it is not always viewed as worth the trouble to produce. In Jamaica, it is regarded as nice but overrated; not comparable to a good field-ripe pineapple or a choice mango.

Medicinal Uses: Dried fruits are shipped from Singapore to Calcutta and to China for medicinal use. The sliced and dried rind is powdered and administered to overcome dysentery. Made into an ointment, it is applied on eczema and other skin disorders. The rind decoction is taken to relieve diarrhea and cystitis, gonorrhea and gleet and is applied externally as an astringent lotion. A portion of the rind is steeped in water overnight and the infusion given as a remedy for chronic diarrhea in adults and children. Filipinos employ a decoction of the leaves and bark as a febrifuge and to treat thrush, diarrhea, dysentery and urinary disorders. In Malaya, an infusion of the leaves, combined with unripe banana and a little benzoin is applied to the wound of circumcision. A root decoction is taken to regulate menstruation. A bark extract called "amibiasine", has been marketed for the treatment of amoebic dysentery.

The rind of partially ripe fruits yields a polyhydroxy-xanthone derivative termed mangostin, also ß-mangostin. That of fully ripe fruits contains the xanthones, gartanin, 8-disoxygartanin, and normangostin. A derivative of mangostin, mangostin-e, 6-di-O-glucoside, is a central nervous system depressant and causes a rise in blood pressure.

A Friendly Skeptic Looks at Mangosteen

By Dr. Ralph Moss
from CancerDecisions.com Newsletter

Uses in Traditional Medicine

For many years dried mangosteen fruits have been shipped from Singapore to Calcutta and then on to China for medicinal use. As to its many uses in folk medicine, here is what botanist Julia Morton has written:

"The sliced and dried rind is powdered and administered to overcome dysentery. Made into an ointment, it is applied on eczema and other skin disorders. The rind decoction is taken to relieve diarrhea and cystitis, gonorrhea and gleet [a watery discharge, ed.] and is applied externally as an astringent lotion. A portion of the rind is steeped in water overnight and the infusion given as a remedy for chronic diarrhea in adults and children.

"Filipinos employ a decoction of the leaves and bark as a febrifuge and to treat thrush, diarrhea, dysentery and urinary disorders. In Malaya, an infusion of the leaves, combined with unripe banana and a little benzoin is applied to the wound of circumcision. A root decoction is taken to regulate menstruation. A bark extract called 'amibiasine', has been marketed for the treatment of amoebic dysentery."

Morton also writes that "[t]he rind of partially ripe fruits yields a polyhydroxy-xanthone derivative termed mangostin, also beta-mangostin. That of fully ripe fruits contains the xanthones, gartanin, 8-desoxygartanin, and normangostin. A derivative of mangostin, mangostin-e, 6-di-O-glucoside, is a central nervous system depressant and causes a rise in blood pressure." A more complete listing of constituents is given at ethnobotanist Dr. James Duke's informative and useful Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases (Duke 2004).

We can conclude then that mangosteen has many uses in folk medicine, and as such, it can join a fairly long list of plants that can be considered as promising sources of new medicines.

...the latest "miracle cure" craze. The price of their XanGo mangosteen juice is currently $37 per bottle (or four for $100). You have to ask yourself: who on earth would pay that much for a bottle of fruit juice, no matter how delicious it might be? The reason the marketers can succeed in selling juice at this price is obvious: when people are suffering from medical conditions for which there does not appear to be much hope, or for which the orthodox medical recommendations are too toxic or expensive, they will actively seek alternatives. And then someone, oftentimes someone they trust, such as a friend or neighbor, convinces them to give some new product a try. Products such as mangosteen exploit humanity's understandable desire to discover simple and painless solutions to intractable problems.

But all of this is speculative. It is undoubtedly true that there are many xanthones (a kind of antioxidant) in mangosteen. In fact, according to the Merck Index (11th Ed., p. 5613) the first scientifically defined substance to be derived from mangosteen was the xanthone mangostin. This was isolated by a German scientist named Schmid in 1855. In 1979, mangostin was found to have significant anti-inflammatory and anti-ulcer effects in rats (Shankaranarayan 1979). Yet although mangosteen's xanthones have been known for almost 150 years, there are still only 19 PubMed articles on these xanthones and none of these articles concerns the use of xanthones in the actual clinical treatment of human disease. So I would say the jury is still out on their effectiveness in treating anything.

Effects on Cancer

At the XanGo website, a company spokesperson interviews Dr Templeman on the subject of mangosteen's beneficial effect on cancer. They both agree that a single test tube experiment is proof of the anticancer value of the juice:

Dr. Templeman refers to 44 scientific publications on this topic but there are just 29 articles on the topic of Garcinia mangostana in PubMed, the US National Library of Medicine database of 14+ million citations. A total of four of these studies relate to cancer. In one test tube experiment it was shown that a xanthone found in mangosteen kills cancer cells as effectively as many chemotherapeutic drugs. It also appears (on the basis of limited data) that compounds found abundantly in mangosteen can inhibit the harmful Cox 1 and Cox 2 enzymes, and can also induce programmed cell death (apoptosis) in aberrant cells (Ho 2002). Mangosteen thus joins a fairly long list of naturally derived compounds that might potentially have some anticancer activity.

These 29 articles do not constitute a wealth of data. For example, by contrast, PubMed lists over 2,300 articles on the topic of vitamin C and cancer, 125 of which refer to clinical trials. There are a similar number of studies on vitamin E and cancer. There are 835 studies of melatonin and cancer, and a truly impressive 16,000 on polysaccharides and cancer, including 536 clinical trials and 277 randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Yet, we're to believe that four test-tube experiments constitute - to quote the aforementioned Dr. Templeman - "mountains of evidence" on the benefits of XanGo.

According to the promotional website of one of XanGo's many "independent distributors" at http://bjsbytes.com/Xango/Questions.htm:

"...much of the science behind xanthones is predominantly available to those in the medical community until recently. Many of the clinical studies on xanthones have been done in universities and testing facilities throughout Asia and have recently started to catch the attention of Western researchers."

But is this true? Reputable researchers the world over, including those in Asia, publish in PubMed-listed journals. For example there are over 63,000 articles on cancer in PubMed in the Japanese language. Yet despite the website's misleading talk about "clinical studies," PubMed does not contain a single clinical trial of mangosteen in the treatment of cancer, or any other disease. Perhaps these promoters don't realize that a clinical study is not something done in a laboratory, but a study that by definition is carried out on living patients. Laboratory studies on cell lines or even animals do not qualify for the title 'clinical study'.

Thus, despite what you may read at any one of those 21,000 promotional websites, very little scientific evidence exists concerning mangosteen's anticancer activity in humans.

In my opinion, what we have here is simply an overpriced fruit drink. Fruit drinks are often healthful beverages. But the only reason I can see that the promoters of mangosteen can get away with charging $37 for this product is that they are playing on patients' hopes and fears in a cynical way. Without the health claims, open or implied, the product could only be sold for at most $5 or $6 (which, for example, is the cost of antioxidant-rich pomegranate juice).

The mangosteen phenomenon is a reprise of the aloe vera, gingko biloba, and especially the noni juice story, complete with exaggerated claims for the health benefits of an exotic fruit.

It should come as no surprise that both the President and the Chief Financial Officer of Xango once worked for Morinda (now called Tahitian Noni International).

You Can Detox Your Body with the Grape Cure and Feel like a Kid Again...

By Chet Day
Editor, Health & Beyond Weekly

Most people don't even realize it, but they feel sluggish, miserable, stressed, and whipped most of the time because their bodies are clogged up with all the junk they've been eating for so long.

Well, in the 1920s, Johanna Brandt of South Africa cured her stomach cancer and healed everything that ailed her with what she called The Grape Cure. A few years later, she wrote a fascinating book that revealed the specifics of her natural cure for cancer and many other diseases.