Let's talk a bit about illness. In the final analysis, when something goes wrong, the human body must heal itself. Physicians may assist with (or intrude upon) the healing process utilizing medication or surgery, but whatever the intervention, it can do no more than assist the body.

As patients, we may initiate a variety of measures to help our bodies recuperate. Trying to get more rest is always an option. Changing routines or what we eat is also often part of the process. Perhaps most importantly, we may try to discipline our thinking so that despair and depression do not supervene and make everything worse.

However, despite our best efforts, recovery is often slow; painful or both. Sometimes recovery never happens and we are left handicapped or worse. While supplements are perhaps most important in the prevention of illness, they can assume an equally crucial role when illness strikes. For disease to manifest itself many things at a cellular level have had to be in turmoil for a considerable time. All disease starts at this elemental level and the first imbalance always occurs in cellular function. For the body to maintain homeostasis (the state of equilibrium that characterizes good health) it requires, first and foremost, a reliable supply of nutrients to use as the raw materials of life. Usually, illness occurs when this regular supply of essential nutrients is interrupted. Supplementation is one important way to redress the cellular imbalance. The best supplement will be the one with the broadest range of phytonutrients to help the body as it struggles to restore full function. No supplement exceeds the mangosteen's ability to suppiy a wide variety of phytonutrients. Forty-three xanthones, several important catechins and proanthocyanidins, as well as many polysaccharides and sterols, are the major classes of phytonutrients in the fruit.

Xanthones are unique to the mangosteen. Only about 200 have been identified in nature, and forty-three of these are found in this fruit. Most other xanthones are found in lower plants and are not readily available in significant quantities.

Many different polysaccharides are also found in the mangosteen, but for the moment, the chemical fractionalization of the fruit in sufficient detail to identify them all has not been completed. An investigative analysis on the fruit's polysaccharides is currently underway at the Thai University, which has published the greatest number of scholary articles on the fruit.

Mangosteen History

Ghana and India. The fruit is also grown in Venezuela, Brazil, Sri Lanka, the Ivory Coast, Vietnam, Southern China, Burma and possibly other countries where cultivation does not reach commercial proportions. With sources of the fruit in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, it is difficult to envision that a shortage of production could loom anytime in the foreseeable future.

Named for Laurentiers Garcin, the French physician and priest ho first worte about the fruit, the Latin name of the plant is Garcinia Mangostana. In many of the countries where the plant is grown, its medicinal qualities are being utilized today in traditional medicine. There are several preparations containing mangosteen in Chinese medicine and Indian medicine. Likewise, the traditional medicine practitioners of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Africa all utilize the mangosteen for its varied medicinal applications.

These applications include the following:

• antimicrobial agent
• treatment for skin diseases
• anti-inflammatory agent
• analgesic (pain reliever)
• antidiarreal treatment
• gastrointestinal aid

In the countries where traditional use has caught the interest of scientific researchers, several universities have ventured into experimentation with the fruit or its xanthones in an effort to determine how one fruit provides such varied medicinal benefits.

Being familiar with the majority of food supplements available in today's market the opinion is that the mangosteen outperforms any other single supplement in the number of potential health applications it possesses. Some supplements have one cardinal application and several minor applications. In contrast, the mangosteen has at least eight applications, most of them providing primary rather than secondary for its use. No other supplement even approaches this versatility.

Once again, exacly how the body utilizes the fruit's phytoceuticals to correct homeostatic imbalances isn't cleary understood. However, no one with the opportunity of examining the benefits of the fruit, could be anything but impressed by the results.

These benefits of mangosteen fruit use are documented primarily in the anecdotal reports of consumers. But was enough for the American Cancer Society make a document to talk about the mangosteen:

What Can You Expect From Using The Mangosteen?

No details have survived the centuries to describe the circumstances under which Laurentiers Garcin first encountered the mangosteen. As the first western physician to document the medicinal properties of the fruit in 1628, he may have been involved in treating Thai children stricken with dysentery. He probably observed the amazing resolution of the symptoms of the disease when sufferers drank a tea made from the rind of the fruit.

If this is true, then little has changed in close to 300 years as far as how people learn about the mangosteen. Today, individuals worldwide suffering from a wide variety of afflictions are discovering that when they consume a preparation containing the whole mangosteen fruit, things often improve.

Precisely how their bodies utilize the abundant phytonutrients found in the superfruit has yet to be fully elucidated by science. But if the "how" isn't clear, there remains little doubt that the fruit's phytonutrients are effectively utilized by the human body as it works to resolve an amazing number of health problems.

It would be both desirable and enlightening to understand exactly how the body utilizes the mangosteen's principal nutrients-namely, its xanthones, catechins, proanthocyanidins, polysaccharides and sterols.

However, the fact that we do not yet possess the full extent of this knowledge does not imply that we cannot enjoy the fruit's potential benefits. Truthfully, even physicians, in most cases of illness we have only a superficial grasp of what exactly goes wrong with the proper functioning of the body when disease begins. As a result of this ignorance of the early disease processes, we usually confine our efforts to intervening only when disease has shown itself and is well established.

At this point, doctors typically can do little more than alter the course of the disease with medicine. It would seem anything that is harmless and helps the body correct imbalance and restore function in the early stages of illness should be acceptable to physicians. This should be true even if doctors don't have an adequate understanding of what is happening in the body.

Obvious benefits should not be rejected on the grounds that mechanisms of action remain unexplained. Dr.Garcin could not have explained the recoveries from dysentery he witnessed so long ago. As you read discuss what isn't yet known, it do not imply that we know nothing about the body's use of the mangosteen phytoceuticals.

On the contrary, literally hundreds of studies exist detailing how the consumption of catechins, xanthones, polysaccharides, proanthocynidins, and other compounds found in the mangosteen could potentially be used by the body to modify function.

Epiderniological studies prove beyond reasonable doubt that diets rich in these nutritional elements provide chemoprotection from the development of many serious chronic illnesses.

Other studies document how intervention with these phytoceuticals in established disease has often proven beneficial. Since skepticisrn regarding the health value of the mangosteen is particularly widespread among health professionals, we have chosen to list many of the relevant studies in the area science of this website.

I would invite all honest investigators, even skeptical investigators, to carefully examine the evidence. Unfortunately, many of the studies are couched in technical jargon, which can place them beyond the cornprehension of most laymen.

However, their simple existence in such large numbers is impressive.

In a very real sense, each person's body is a unique laboratory.

Each person is unique because. Contrary to popular opinion, what happens in an individual's body may be different from what occurs in anyone else's body even under the same conditions.

These differences may be slight, or they may be significant. Either way, this "biological diversity" means that it is impossible to predict with precision what a particular body will do with anything consumed for the purpose of bringing about a change.

This is as true for medicines as it is for food supplements.

To know absolutly how your body will use the mangosteen nutrients requires personal experimentation. The health benefits of other consumers cannot be used as an exact predictor of what you may experience personally. Your relationship with your own body can be problematic or harmonious.

Providing optimal attention and nutrition for your body makes good sense. To prevent the imbalances that may Iead to disease or to provide the nutrients your body may require to re-estahlish its equilibrium if disease already exists, I recommend you consume a whole fruit mangosteen preparation dally for a reasonable period of time. This is the only way to know for yourself what your body will do. Consumers of the mangosteen fruit must have realistic expectations in order to avoid disappointment.

Another area of common unrealistic expectation concerns the length of time the mangosteen preparation needs to be consumed for benefits to be experienced. With many users, the body appears to be avidly awaiting the nutrients it requires to bring about change or to re-estabiish the equilibriurn of function. In these instances, beneficial responses can be seen within days.

However, other people's bodies with the identical dysfunction may not be able to rectify the problems in the same short time, even when the same phytonutrients are available in identical quantities. Why this occurs we simply do not know. Sometimes increasing the amount of juice consumed will shorten the response time, but this is not always the case. In some cases response delays, therefore, can vary from days to months and from individual to individual.

Response rates, however, generally are very good and strongly justify the personal experimentation with the mangosteen I have suggested. Try it to see what your body will do with it. Additionally, many repair processes or beneficial chemoprotective effects simply can't be felt by the user. The body may be using the phytonutrients to good effect without the consumer even being aware of the fact.

This could be compared to the use of vitamins. We take them because we are convinced our bodies need them in quantities greater that those available from the average diet. We do this believing what we are doing is beneficial and worth the cost even though we cannot detect any changes which could be attributed to the vitamins.

In order to be convinced that using the mangosteen has such unseen beneficial effects, we need to study what science says about this superfruit.