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Morinda - Myth or Magic?

The juice of Morinda citrifolia L., more popularly known as noni juice, which has been used by Polynesian and Hawaiian healers for centuries and is often primarily used today for “immune system enhancement”.

Noni juice, according to PROOF!, is yet another alternative magic bullet which claims to act beneficially on all the body’s system. It is sold through multilevel marketing groups as a potential cure for Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration, diabetes, uterine fibroids and more. Apparently, there is no convincing evidence that it actually aids any of these conditions.

There is a very recent study by researchers at the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu (Phytotherapy Research (1999) 13 (5) 380-387) which suggests that an immunomodulatory polysaccharide-rich subtance from the fruit juice of noni may suppress tumour growth through activation of the immune system.

Nonetheless a recent study suggests that noni juice may have unexpected side-effects. Doctors in America report (Mueller, BA, et al. Am. J. Kidney Dis., 2000; 35: 310-12) on the case of a man with chronic insufficiency who was self-medicating with noni juice. When the man first sought help at the medical clinic, he was found to have hyperkalaemia (excessive potassium in the circulating blood), even though he claimed to adhere to a low-potassium diet. Further investigation revealed that the potassium concentration of noni juice was similar to that in orange juice and tomato juice. Individuals who need to avoid or limit potassium intake should be aware of noni’s [and presumably orange and tomato as well] ability to raise potassium levels.

Vitamins, ‘E’ in particular.
Vitamins, formerly known as “accessory food factors”, are present in many animal and vegetable foods. Their absence from the diet causes deficiency diseases, such as scurvy, beri-beri, rickets and night blindness. The value of citrus juices in the treatment of scurvy was realized in the eighteenth century. Systematic feeding experiments began about 1873 and much work on the subject was done from 1906 to 1912. Researchers established that beri-beri was produced in people living mainly on polished rice, who could be cured if “rice-polishings”, the outer part of the grain removed in making polished rice, were added to the diet. I believe that it was a gentleman named Funk who, in 1911, coined the name ‘vitamine’ for the active fraction of rice-polishings. The existence of vitamin A was proved in 1915 and other letters were applied to later vitamins discovered.

Chemically, vitamins vary from very simple compounds to very complex ones. They belong to no one chemical type. Vitamins differ from one another in physical properties such as solubility, and have traditionally been classified according to their water-solubility and fat-solubility properties. In the main, the water-soluble are non-toxic and can be consumed in large doses without harm; they also remain in the body for a realatively short time. On the other hand the fat-soluble vitamins are more toxic in large doses and are stored in the fatty reserves of organs of the body for long periods of time. The solubilities also determine the type of food products in which the two groups occur, e.g. fatty dairy products as opposed to plant juices. Amongst the fat-soluble vitamins is Vitamin E.

Vitamin E contains a number of tocopherols [the methylated derivatives of tocol], prefixed alpha-, beta-, gamma-, etc. which are of wide occurrence in plants, especially in the germ of cereals. Alpha-, beta-, and gamma-tocopherols are among those found in the germ of wheat, barley and rye, whereas others are found in soya beans, ground nuts and maize. Oats contain some five different tocopherols.

Dating from the 1930s, vitamin E has been considered to improve fertility but like the beneficial effects in the treatment of high blood cholestrol, angina pectoris and ageing conditions, none have been definitively substantiated. More recently its use in the treatment of intermittent claudication and fibroblastic breast disease have been suggested. Most seem to agree that it probably acts as an antioxidant and prevents lipid peroxidation, but generally its biochemistry is still unclear.

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