THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (05/09/04)

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10 May 2004 10:55:02 -0000

" Cancer Decisions "

THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (05/09/04)

 

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Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com

Newsletter #132 05/09/04

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HERE AT THE MOSS REPORTS

 

 

When it comes to taking care of one's health it is often assumed that if a

little of something is generally found to be good for you, then more of it must

be even better. Unfortunately this is a fallacy - even water can be toxic in

excess quantities - but it is surprisingly widespread fallacy nonetheless, and

one that has been eagerly exploited in the marketing of nutritional supplements

and supposedly healthful foodstuffs.

 

In this week's newsletter I don my Friendly Skeptic's hat and begin a two-part

series examining the wildly popular fruit drink XanGo, the latest in a long line

of health food crazes. Many claims have been made for the health-giving effects

of this drink. Are such claims founded on good, solid scientific evidence, or

are they simply another example of marketing hype?

 

In thirty years of researching and writing about the treatment of cancer, I have

seen many fads come and go, both in the field of conventional and alternative

medicine. I have written more than two hundred different Moss Reports on

specific cancer diagnoses, bringing the principles of friendly skepticism to

bear on the claims made by orthodox and alternative practitioners alike. If

someone you love is facing a cancer diagnosis, a Moss Report represents a

thorough and impartial guide to help you through the choices ahead.

 

You can order a report through our website, www.cancerdecisions.com, or by

calling Diane at 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 if calling from outside the

country).

 

 

 

A FRIENDLY SKEPTIC LOOKS AT MANGOSTEEN

 

 

When I wrote " Cancer Therapy " in the early 1990s, I had the bright idea of

putting my mailing address in the book in the hope that some readers would send

me information on new treatments. Little did I imagine that such communication

would become a torrent of proposals. Today, hardly a day goes by without my

being made aware of some new " cure. " Would that a fraction of these panned out

as well as proponents claimed!

 

One of the latest in this long line is an exotic fruit drink called mangosteen,

or XanGo. Mangosteen should not be confused with mango, an entirely different

plant. It is part of a group known as the Guttiferae, a family of mainly

tropical trees and shrubs that secrete an acrid yellow resinous juice.

Mangosteen's scientific designation is Garcinia mangostana (Campin 2004). It is

reputedly named after a French explorer, Jacques Garcin (1673-1751). In Europe

and North America, the most recognizable member of this family is the popular

herb, St. John's wort.

 

No one knows exactly where and when the mangosteen was first cultivated. One

botanist, Julia F. Morton, believes it originated in the Moluccas and the Sunda

Islands. Yet there are also wild mangosteen trees in the forests of Malaya. Some

experts say the trees were first domesticated in Thailand or Burma. But in the

19th century, botanists brought seeds to Europe and America. Valiant attempts

were made to cultivate the 18-foot high trees in Africa, the Caribbean and

central America. But the plant is considered " ultra-tropical " and sensitive:

nursery seedlings die at 45º F. In fact, there are few if any mangosteens

growing in the continental US. A lone American tree in Florida was said to have

yielded a single fruit...and then died. That was the beginning and end of the

American mangosteen " industry. "

 

But attempts continued to bring mangosteen to Europe and America as a food.

" Despite the oft-repeated Old World enthusiasm for this fruit, " says Morton, " 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. "

 

The mangosteen fruit is the size of a small apple, purple colored, with a hard

rind. Inside there are typically five to seven seeds surrounded by a sweet,

juicy cover (or aril). The pulp, which is said to resemble a pineapple or peach

in taste, is reputed to be a very delicious food - in Asia it is sometimes

called the queen of fruits in honor both of its flavor and its economic

importance.

 

 

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.

 

 

XanGo on the Go

 

 

In this age of frenzied commercialism, entrepreneurs are always on the lookout

for ways to make it big in the natural medicines market. Under such conditions,

however, new medicines of botanical origin cannot be developed or tested in an

orderly way.

 

A common feature of the way in which natural medicines such as mangosteen are

promoted is the use of network marketing. This involves the retailing of

products through the use of independent distributors. These distributors are

then encouraged to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting,

motivating, supplying, and training others to sell products. Compensation in

such arrangements includes the distributor's own sales as well as a percentage

of the sales of his or her entire " downline " (i.e., all those people signed up

by an individual, who in turn go on to become salespeople). The term network

marketing is virtually synonymous with the older but now somewhat disreputable

term 'multi-level marketing' (MLM).

 

Network marketing turns mere consumers into determined marketers who

aggressively sell their product, often to their own friends, relatives and

neighbors. The more people they can recruit into the growing network the more

money they themselves make. A sophisticated marketing blitz, including books and

pamphlets, seemingly objective newsletters, press releases and chattering

websites, inflate the importance of a product, creating a buzz that only dies

away when the huge supply of potential customers and salespeople is finally

exhausted. Or when, as it has on occasion, the government finally steps in. But

the essential requirement for a successful MLM operation of this sort is a

kernel of promising-sounding scientific evidence, coupled with a credible and

compelling story, a compliant doctor willing to underwrite the concept, and

finally some patients (who may themselves be distributors) willing to testify

that the product led to astounding cures.

 

Aloe vera, colloidal minerals, gingko biloba and ginseng were all popularized in

this way. But perhaps the most memorable example of a network marketing stampede

is noni juice, a once totally obscure Polynesian fruit that became the basis of

a huge industry. Tahitian Noni International, formerly called Morinda, last year

claimed to have passed the two billion dollar sales mark! This is the sort of

performance that makes get-rich-quick artists drool.

 

The techniques of network marketing, honed through decades of trial and error,

are now being used by a Utah-based company to position mangosteen as 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.

 

Now that the commercial ball is rolling an increasing number of mangosteen

brands are reaching the market. But for the time being the market leader is

XanGo (www.myxango.com). A visit to their website triggers an audio webcast from

a very pleasant sounding young lady, who assures us that " by integrating the

Internet, teamwork, and personal mentoring, MyXanGo.com provides you a vehicle

to improve the areas of your life that are most important to you, and we do it

for FREE. "

 

I listened in amazement to her polished spiel and the brazen intrusiveness of

this message. I was particularly amused when she said, " You should know that

this message is not about selling. " Right. " It's not about false claims and

outlandish statements. " Sure. " It's about sharing facts to help you decide if

now is the right time in your life to consider XanGo. " Really.

 

The rhetoric gets even more effusive. A March 2004 press release from one seller

proclaims: " Mangosteen is now on an unstoppable march to conquer the world "

(Goss 2004). Put this way it sounds rather ominous…almost like a cross between

Osama bin Laden and the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

 

 

Xanthones

 

 

As stated, one requirement for a successful network promotion is that there be

at least a kernel of scientific truth around which exaggerated claims can be

assembled. As with noni juice, mangosteen is not entirely without scientific

documentation. The problem, as usual, is that the claims for mangosteen are

inflated till they far outpace what has been established through careful

experimentation.

 

Some mangosteen promoters have mined James Duke's famous ethnobotanical database

for confirmation of their product's value. And, indeed, Dr. Duke confirms that

the plant contains several interesting components. But so do thousands of other

plants in his voluminous database. For most of the chemicals contained in this

fruit (such as beta-mangostin, catechins, cis-hex-3-enyl-acetate,

gamma-mangostin, gartanin, garcinones) the database lists NO particular

biochemical activities. Only the compound called " mangostin " seems to have some

scientific backing for its antibacterial, antiseptic and fungicidal properties

(Recio 1989). Yet scores of mangosteen websites now cite Duke's database as

scientific justification for this product. In reality, Dr. Duke has absolutely

nothing to do with any mangosteen distributor and is not particularly

enthusiastic about the product.

 

Much is made of the xanthone connection. According to the MyXanGo.com website:

" There are over 200 xanthones in nature. Each xanthone can have specific effects

on the body. What's remarkable about the mangosteen is that there are over 40

xanthones identified in the pericarp, or rind, making it the single most

xanthone-rich source in the world….Only six of the xanthones have been studied

in depth. While we don't know fully why the mangosteen works on such a wide

variety of physical conditions, we know it has to do with being the world's most

potent source of xanthones. Each xanthone has its own effect, and when combined,

they take on a synergistic quality that supports the health of the entire body. "

 

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.

 

The main XanGo website also claims that the antioxidant ORAC (oxygen radical

absorbance capacity) value of mangosteen is the highest of all edible plants.

" It is so potent that literally I know of nothing else in the supplement market

that can possibly come even close to it, " says J. Frederic Templeman, MD, a

Georgia family practitioner who is interviewed at the MyXanGo website. Many

other XanGo-promoting websites repeat the claim that while the previous

champion, prunes, have an ORAC value of 7,000 per ounce, mangosteen has an ORAC

value of 17,000 to 24,000.

 

Yet XanGo sites claim that " a new champion " has been born in the worldwide

contest for ORAC supremacy. But where in the scientific literature is the ORAC

value of XanGo published? The source of these numbers is hard to track down. For

instance, the Sunsweet prune website states that 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of

prunes have an ORAC value of 5,770. While the ORAC values for most fruits and

vegetables have been determined by standard laboratories and published in

scientific journals, this is not so for mangosteen. I have not seen independent

confirmation of these confidently promulgated claims. However, even if we assume

for the sake of argument that the figures cited are indeed accurate, it must be

pointed out that merely having an astronomically high ORAC value does not in and

of itself confer any particular advantage. Not all antioxidants that are

confirmed as present in the laboratory can be absorbed by human beings. And

there is a limit to how much we can benefit from an increased

intake of antioxidants.

 

According to Dr. Ronald Prior of the US Department of Agriculture Research

Service at Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, " a significant increase in

antioxidants of 15 to 20 percent is possible by increasing consumption of fruits

and vegetables, particularly those high in ORAC value. " However, in order to

have a significant impact on plasma and tissue antioxidant capacity one can only

meaningfully increase one's daily intake by 3,000 to 5,000 ORAC units. Any

greater amount is probably redundant. That is because the antioxidant capacity

of the blood is tightly regulated, says Dr. Prior. Thus there is an upper limit

to the benefit that can be derived from antioxidants. Taking in 25,000 ORAC

units at one time (as reputedly occurs with mangosteen) would be no more

beneficial than taking in a fifth of that amount: the excess is simply excreted

by the kidneys.

 

TO BE CONTINUED, WITH REFERENCES, NEXT WEEK

 

 

--Ralph W. Moss, PhD

 

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

 

The news and other items in this newsletter are intended for informational

purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter is intended to be a substitute for

professional medical advice.

 

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