Hattie Cobb's List: Noni

•              

  Country of origin: Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (W. I)

  Main Market of Noni Fruit From Brazil:

  <!-- google_ad_section_start() -->  Product details of Noni Fruit From Brazil:  <!-- google_ad_section_end() -->

  Noni Fruit From Brazil     <!-- google_ad_section_start() -->  Noni tropical fruit. We offer Noni Tropical Fruit and other Fresh fruits, spices and vegetables from Brazil. Please contact us for more informations. Product Details: Style: Fresh Product Type: Other <!-- google_ad_section_end() -->

   

   

   

   

  Send Inquiry to this Supplier

     

  SIFA - International Trade Agency & Import-Export Agency   View Original Size Mr. Moise Smith Jacques   509-372-57698   509-37 81 01 75
•                                                      

  Company Name:	SIFA - International Trade Agency & Import-Export Agency
  City:	Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (W. I)
  Contact Person:	View Original Size Mr. Moise Smith Jacques
  Telephone Number:	509-372-57698
  Fax:	1309-422-8526
  Mobile:	509-37 81 01 75
  Zip/Postal Code:	32801
  Province:	Florida
  Country:	United States

• A beautiful woman in a grass skirt and scallop shells covering her breasts beckons me to purchase a bottle of Polynesian noni juice, the latest health elixir to make the transition from multi-level marketing scheme to major outlets like Costco.

   

  Although she's just a two-dimensional model pasted on the bottle, she's alluring enough to make many a customer ignore noni's steep price, awful taste and utterly false health claims.

   

  According to this label, Polynesians have used noni juice for centuries to heal the mind, body and spirit, although a little asterisk after this statement tells me the FDA doesn't agree.  Doctors continue to unlock the juice's natural health secrets, although another asterisk indicates this statement is false, too. 

   

           

     

        

  Bad Medicine Bad Medicine appears each Tuesday on LiveScience. Other naturally bad ideas:   The Big Fat Truth   California to Measure Toxic Pollutants in People   The Truth Behind the Spinach Scare: Cheap Beef   Exciting New Cancer Treatments Emerge Amid Persistent Myths   Dietary Supplements: Too Much of a Good Thing?   In Japan, Even Children Love The Vegetables   Circumcision: Fact, Fiction and Hype   Vaccines Need a Shot in the Arm   Colon Cleansing: Money Down the Toilet   Sex and Bad Decisions in Washington   Revealing the Truth about Natural Cures

   

  Web sites selling noni claim it cures everything from colds to cancer—well, at least the ones that haven't been shut down by the Federal Trade Commission.  Noni juice, it seems, has all the markings of bad medicine: outrageous health claims, little evidence for these claims, and questionable marketing.

• Trouble in paradise

   

  Noni grows easily in warm climates throughout Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.  The pungent, ripe fruit is a tough swallow, though, known in many tongues as the vomit fruit or rotten cheese fruit, and is consumed usually only in famines.  Many South Pacific cultures use noni in traditional medicine.

   

  Most noni juice sold in the United States contain a dash of noni cut with water and other juices to make it palatable.  Noni juice is said to improve or cure arthritis, cancer, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, impotence and so on.  It is commonly sold as Polynesian, Tahiti or Hawaiian noni.

   

  If Polynesians readily consumed noni juice, as marketers claim, then the results are surely minimal.  Sadly, as a result of colonization, land confiscation and forced changes in lifestyle and diet, many Polynesians from the South Pacific through the Hawaiian Islands are in poor health.

   

  In French Polynesia, home to Tahiti, 45 percent of women are obese and nearly another 30 percent are overweight, according to the World Health Organization.  In parts of the Federated States of Micronesia, up to 80 percent of the population are obese and 50 percent are diabetic, according to the WHO.  That slender lady on the bottle is an illusion.

   

  Native Hawaiians are twice as likely to get diabetes and nearly six times more likely to die from it compared to whites on the islands, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Health experts are trying to get the local populations to exercise more and to shun the western influence of cigarettes, alcohol, and fatty and salty processed foods, not drink more noni.

• Trouble in the laboratory

   

  What's the active ingredient in noni?  It's xeronine, maybe.  Chemist Ralph Heinicke, who worked for the pineapple industry, discovered minute traces of this unknown chemical in pineapples and then noni.  Although he published his results in a non-peer-reviewed newsletter and never determined the chemical formula, he received a patent for xeronine in 1985.

   

  Heinicke, now with the noni industry, claims that xeronine is an essential nutrient that enables proteins to enter and exit cellular walls.  Noni also contains pro-xeronine, Heinicke says, which is converted to xeronine in the large intestines.  While not implausible, none of this has been proven, and Heinicke's work remains a mystery to researchers today.

   

  Aside from the xeronine "discovery," noni marketers point to a 1994 health study from the University of Hawaii showing how noni cured a certain type of lung cancer in laboratory mice.  While promising, this result was marginal and relied on a protocol not endorsed by the National Cancer Institute.
• Several more promising laboratory experiments have since been performed.  Like oranges, noni might contain anti-cancer properties.  Yet these minimally positive studies entailed injecting high concentrations of noni directly into an animal's cancerous organ or into a test tube with cancerous cells.  Drinking noni—in the paltry concentration our taste buds will allow—has not been shown to reverse or slow cancer in any creature.

• More illness than cures

   

  A little science goes a long way in the alternative medicine world, which is why web sites claim that noni is "clinically proven" to cure cancer and treat other diseases.  We're not there yet.  Noni, like so many other traditional medicine plants, may well have therapeutic properties.  Only more research will tell.

   

  But noni is not entirely safe. 

   

  There have been several documented cases of individuals damaging their livers after drinking noni.  More common is a kidney-related disease called hyperkalemia, or high potassium levels in the bloodstream.  People prone to hyperkalemia know to avoid bananas or orange juice, naturally high in potassium, but many are unaware of the high potassium levels in noni.

• The alternative food pyramid

   

  Consumers should also be aware of multi-level marketing, or pyramid schemes, associated with noni.  Noni for sale in stores seems legitimate, aside from the bit about being a useless health product.  But around the world, noni is often sold by independent distributors who recruit other distributors to recruit other distributors and so on.

   

  These distributors are hungry for your dollar, charging $30-100 for a month supply with instructions to drink the stuff at varying doses for months if not years.

   

  With rampant obesity, diabetes and cancer in this world, one would think that a product that can cure obesity, diabetes and cancer would attract praise from doctors.  Instead noni attracts the typical mix of profit-hungry marketers and dubious medical experts who write the books and work for the noni makers.  Be strong and say "no" to the hot babes in grass skirts.

4 more annotations...

• tudy of Noni in Cancer Patients

     

    This study has been completed. 

       

    First Received: April 11, 2002    Last Updated: March 27, 2007    History of Changes 

                                

  Sponsor:	National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
  Information provided by:	National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
  ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:	NCT00033878

    

     <!-- purpose_section --> 

     Purpose  

    

  The purpose of this Phase 1 study is to: 1. determine the maximum tolerated dose of capsules containing 500mg of freeze dried noni fruit extract, 2. define toxicities associated with the ingestion of noni, 3. collect preliminary information on the efficacy of noni in respect to anti-tumor and symptom control properties to help select specific patients for subsequent Phase 2 studies, 4. identify chemical constituents of the extract that can be used to characterize the bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of noni food supplement.

  
     <!-- condition, intervention, phase summary table --> 

                   

  Condition	Intervention	Phase
  Neoplasms   Neoplasm Metastasis	Drug: Noni Extract	Phase I

   

   
                         

  Study Type:	Interventional
  Study Design:	Primary Purpose: Treatment
  Official Title:	Phase I Study of Noni in Cancer Patients

     <!-- NLM links --> 
   

  Resource links provided by NLM:

   
   

       <!-- medline links --> 

    MedlinePlus related topics:  Cancer 

       

    U.S. FDA Resources 

    

      <!-- more details --> 

• Morinda citrifolia, commonly known as great morinda, Indian mulberry, nunaakai (Tamil Nadu, India) , dog dumpling (Barbados), mengkudu (Malaysia), beach mulberry, cheese fruit^[1] or noni (from Hawaiian) is a tree in the coffee family, Rubiaceae. Morinda citrifolia is native from Southeast Asia to Australia and is now distributed throughout the tropics.^[2]

• Noni grows in shady forests as well as on open rocky or sandy shores. It reaches maturity in about 18 months and then yields between 4–8 kilograms (8.8–18 lb) of fruit every month throughout the year. It is tolerant of saline soils, drought conditions, and secondary soils. It is therefore found in a wide variety of habitats: volcanic terrains, lava-strewn coasts, and clearings or limestone outcrops. It can grow up to 9 metres (30 ft) tall, and has large, simple, dark green, shiny and deeply veined leaves.

   

  The plant bears flowers and fruits all year round. The fruit is a multiple fruit that has a pungent odor when ripening, and is hence also known as cheese fruit or even vomit fruit. It is oval in shape and reaches 4–7 centimetres (1.6–2.8 in) size. At first green, the fruit turns yellow then almost white as it ripens. It contains many seeds. It is sometimes called starvation fruit. Despite its strong smell and bitter taste, the fruit is nevertheless eaten as a famine food^[3] and, in some Pacific islands, even a staple food, either raw or cooked.^[4] Southeast Asians and Australian Aborigines consume the fruit raw with salt or cook it with curry. The seeds are edible when roasted.

   

  The noni is especially attractive to weaver ants, which make nests out of the leaves of the tree. These ants protect the plant from some plant-parasitic insects. The smell of the fruit also attracts fruit bats, which aid in dispersing the seeds.
• Noni has been evaluated unsuccessfully in preliminary clinical trials for possible use in treating cancer,^[13] although the US National Cancer Institute has undertaken further preliminary studies for potential preventive effects against breast cancer.^[14] Since 2007, there have been no other registered clinical trials on potential health benefits or anti-disease effects of noni^[15] which remains scientifically undefined for any effect on human health.^[14]
• Applications in folk medicine have not been verified by modern science or confirmed scientifically to enhance health or prevent disease. Although unsupported by science, the green fruit, leaves and the root/rhizome were traditionally used to treat menstrual cramps, bowel irregularities and urinary tract infections.^[13]

2 more annotations...