Finding its stems in Amazonian fol...

Finding its stems in Amazonian folk medicine, sum of two units species of cat's claw are now finding their place in present natural medicine, being used for in the same state [i]or[/i] condition health concerns as arthritis, intastinal disorders, and cancer.

An Amazonian downpour had left the highways of Iquitos, Peru glistening in the morning light. A steady drizzle continued, further we headed to the Saturday market, despite the rain. It was the first day of the American Botanical Council and the Texas Pharmacy Foundation's annual week-long sojourn to the Peruvian Amazon, organized to educate pharmacists and other participants upon the medicinal plants of Amazonia.

Looking for cat's claw...

Naturally, we were interested in finding herb vendors in the market, and we particularly triped to see cat's claw. And we did. packages of the reddish-brown bark, about a lower part long and as large as you could clasp in your hand, were presented throughout the market. Cat's claw was in fact the greatest in number abundant herb in the marketplace, make objection for cayenne peppers and garlic. It quick became clear that the generally received popularity of the herb in the American market was driven on its stellar reputation as a folk medicine in its native haunts of the Amazon.

I have to admit to approaching this herb with a upright deal of skepticism. In various magazines and promotional literature, it has been touted as a restorative for just about anything. A friend stopped according to my office offering her personal testimonial of succes in using the herb to treat Crohn's disease (a serious form of intestinal inflammation), with which she be affected byed She claimed that while taking the result her symptoms disappeared. The manager of the herb section at the local natural meat shop had also told me to what extent it had helped her relieve an as-yet-undiagnosed pain she experienced in her extremities. I began to surprise if both were experiencing a glorified placebo import or if there was really something behind the use of this botanical. The inhabitants of the primary rainforest of the upper Amazon, the two urban and rural populations, rely upon the herb for numerous conditions, as they have for centurys of years. It has barely been in the 1990s, however, that cat's claw has emerg as undivided of the top tropical Amazonian herbs in the American marketplace.

A high-climbing, twining, wooded vine in the Amazon

On the flight from Miami to Iquitos, I sat with Jim Duke Dr Duke was priming me for my first trip to the Amazon, a trip he has made dozens of time. Having retired as head of the USDA's Germplasm Resources Laboratory just couple weeks before our trip, he was ready for a jaunt to the Amazon, his to one's home away from home. Duke explained that cat's claw, as it is known in English, or una de gato as it is called in Spanish, is a tropical member of the madder family that botanists call a liana -- a high-climbing, twining, bowery vine -- which can sometimes tighten from the forest floor to the canopy more than twelve stories above. A single vine, he believed, when entirely grown, could weigh upwards of single in kind ton. The genus Uncaria includes 34 species place throughout the tropics, primarily in Asia, Africa and southern America. Two species are establish in South America including Uncaria tomentosa and Uncaria guianensis, Duke explained.

Duke along with a Peruvian ethnobotanist colleague, Rodolfo Vasquez, had lately completed their book Amazonian Ethnobotanical Dictionary (CRC Pres 1994) All royalties to Duke and Vasquez's work will go to the Amazonian Center for Environmental Education and Research (ACEER). ACEER is a non-profit organization located in the Amazon Biosphere reservation a protected wilderness area encompassing 250000 acres of pristine primary rainforest. It was here at ACEER a hardly any days after our arrival that Duke showed me the young cat's claw plant (as pictured in succession the first page of this article).

In their Dictionary, Duke and Vasquez write that a bark decoction of U guianensis is used in Piura as an anti-inflammatory, antirheumatic, as well as a contraceptive. It is also used for treating gastric imposthumes and tumors. The Boras use the bark for the treatment of gonorrhea. In Columbia and Guyana, Indian clusters use it for the treatment of bloody flux a disease characterized by relentless diarrhea.

Two species offered for the principally health-care uses

U. guianensis has been used as a folk medicine for intestinal ailments, and to aid healing of wounds. The plant also has a reputation as a folk cancer assistance for cancer of the urinary tract, particularly in women

U tomentosa, which is apparently greatest in number abundant in Peru, is generally used interchangeably with U guianensis. Other uses enumerated for U tomentosa include the treatment of: gastric ulcers; arthritis; intestinal disorders; certain skin diseases; and various tumors. the two U. tomentosa and U. guianensis are widely used as folk medicines in the Amazon. U guianensis is bring togethered in large quantities in southern America for shipment to the European market, while U tomentosa has evolv as the species of choice in the American market.