Healing Spices by Bharat B. Aggarwal

Author:Bharat B. Aggarwal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Sterling
Published: 2011-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

Kokum is from a lush ornamental fruit tree native to India.

Natural Weight-Loss Aid

Kokum is being investigated as a natural weight loss aid because it contains hydroxycitric acid (HCA), a compound found in the dried rind—the spice itself. HCA is a known appetite suppressant, and numerous studies show that ingesting HCA not only leads to weight loss, but fat loss.

In a study conducted in Thailand, researchers asked 50 obese women to go on a diet consisting of 1,000 calories a day, along with a daily diet “pill.” Half got a pill containing HCA; the other half got a placebo. After the two months, the women taking the HCA had lost almost twice as much weight. The greater weight loss “was due to a loss of fat storage,” reported the researchers.

In another study, reported in the journal Nutrition, researchers put lab animals on a three-week diet, during which they lost 20 percent of their body weight. For the next four weeks, they let the animals eat at will, just as humans often do after a calorie-restricted diet. But half the animals received food laced with HCA. The researchers found that the animals getting the HCA ate less and gained back less weight.

Weight loss is the latest addition to the many health benefits historically credited to kokum. Centuries before the spice became a staple in the area’s famed Konkani cuisine, Ayurvedic physicians used it to treat sores and prevent infection, improve digestion, stop diarrhea and constipation, soothe the sore joints of rheumatoid arthritis, cure ear infections, and heal ulcers. It’s also a folk remedy for fever and skin rashes.

Kokum gets this diverse combination of healing actions from its major active ingredient: garcinol, a substance with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities. These qualities led me and other researchers to wonder whether this spice might have potential as a cancer fighter. Studies show it does . . .

Kokum Against Cancer

Human and animal studies at major cancer centers, including M.D. Anderson, have found that garcinol has the ability to track and kill renegade cells on two dozen different pathways to tumor progression. This is significant, because agents that have this ability can not only prevent cancer but also have potential as a treatment for the disease.

Researchers in Taiwan, for example, observed the compound’s power when they induced cancer in laboratory animals with human cancer cells. A subsequent dose of garcinol annihilated those cells.

In another study, oral cancer specialists in Japan injected the tongues of lab animals with cancer cells. For the next eight months, half the animals were given daily doses of dietary garcinol from kokum. At the end of the study, the researchers found that the kokum-fed animals had developed less cancer and had smaller tumors.

Kokum also showed its strength as a cancer fighter when researchers in Taiwan tested it against curcumin, the well-studied active ingredient in the Indian spice turmeric that possesses potent anti-cancer activity. Kokum is structurally similar to turmeric. In the lab experiment, reported in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, both

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