Post date: 24.07.2010 6:41 AM

For nearly six thousand years, Ayurvedic medicine has utilized the benefits of amla, a round, yellow, bitter fruit also known as the Indian gooseberry. Amla is so bitter and so sour that it will literally make your hair stand on end, and that makes it wonderfully useful in natural medicine.

Because most toxins in the natural world are bitter, the human body is fine tuned to detect them. A bitter taste on the tongue usually makes us want to spit food out, and the taste receptors we also have in the stomach can detect bitterness, too. The sensation of bitterness triggers the release of extra stomach acid to make sure any offending food or toxin is thoroughly digested.

The process of completely digesting amla ensures that any foods eaten at about the same time are also completely digested. Potentially allergenic proteins are broken down, and the net effect is “cooling,” stopping the slow autoimmune reactions that generate inflammation all over the body.

The benefits of amla are not limited to digestion. As mentioned earlier, the pulp of berry can be used to straighten hair. More people are interested, however, in using amla to fight high cholesterol, osteoporosis, and cancer.

• Amla against high cholesterol. Some of the most exciting research about amla is in the fight against metabolic syndrome, a combination of symptoms including moderately high cholesterol, moderately high blood pressure, and prediabetes. At least in the laboratory, fibers in amla help reverse the effects of excessive consumption of fructose.

• Amla against osteoporosis. Scientists at the Ferrara University in Italy have found that amla extracts slow the activity of osteoclasts, the cells that break down bone.Since osteoporosis is a process of osteoclasts (bone busters) outpacing osteoblasts (bone builders), a slight shift in balance of activity stops destruction of joints by arthritis without interfering with the bone’s ability to make normal repairs.

• Amla against cancer. Most of the research is testing amla as a way of stopping the growth of lung and liver cancer with a minimum of chemotherapy, rather than using amla instead of chemotherapy. But when doses of chemotherapy can be reduced, side effects are also reduced.

And amla also shows real promise to become a proven way to stop age-related cataracts, the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 55.

Don’t rely on amla alone for any health application. But consider adding amla to your regular supplementation as another layer of protection against the health effects of aging.

Article By BeWellBuzz Featured Writer Robert Rister:

Chemist, commentator, and formulator of natural products, cited as an authority on herbal medicine in publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and Natural Health, Robert Rister is the author or co-author of over twenty books on natural health, including the forthcoming Coconut Grove Diet.