Superfood Pleasures by Emmanuel Sarris - HTML preview

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Noni fruit

This is the fruit >f Morinda citrifolia L. tree, native in South-East Asia. Mainly it grows in Hawaii and Tahiti, though now its cultivation has spread towards Central and South America (Carrilo-Lopez, 2011). It is a yellow 3 to 4 inch fruit. In traditional medicine it was used by Aboriginals from Australia, habitants of Pacific area, and South-East Asians, and they used not only the fruit but even leaves, seeds, bark and roots.

In traditional medicine it has been used for its antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, antitumor, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, hypotensive, antihelmin effect (destroying of parasitic worms) and for enhancing the immunity (Wang et al., 2002). Recent researches have confirmed its antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer properties (Carrillo-Lopez, 2011).

Determination of nutrient profile of noni juice revealed that it is potential dietary source of vitamin C, vitamin A, niacin, manganese, potassium, iron and selenium. There is significant amount of polysaccharides that boost immunity. In one research noni fruit juice and noni concentrate were investigated, and it was found that both have potential immune enhancing and immuno-modulating effect (Palu et al., 2008).

The main health beneficial effect comes from the high concentration of phytochemicals, like polyphenols that mainly protect the hearth and iridoids, the cancer fighting components. Most commonly researcher iridoidisdeacetylasperulosidic acid and most researched polyphenol in noni fruit is scopoletin. Scopoletin has antibacterial, antifungal, antiinflammatory and analgesic properties as found by the researches of University of Hawaii. This component can also lower blood pressure, acting as a vasodilation and prevent or treat allergies, arthritis, sleep disorder, headaches, depression and even Alzheimer’s disease. There are some antioxidants in noni, that protect the body tissue especially the kidney, liver and brain, by scavenge the free radicals(West et al., 2011, Bonne, 2013). When analyzing the fruit puree of noni, several active compounds were isolated as scopoletin, rutin and quercetin. It was noted that combination of scopoletin and qiercetin acted synergistically in suppression of inflammatory and carcinogenic process related to certain oxidative processes (Nitteranon et al., 2010).

Study done by Jainkittivong et al., showed that the noni fruit extract, had antifungal activity in vitro on Candida albicans, and that effect was variable upon time and concentration. Even improved mental health and improved high frequency hearing were noted when Tahitian noni juice was consumed. Some confirmations of the health benefit of noni ware concluded by statistical clinical survey of 10 000 noni juice users conducted by Neil Solomon. He found that energy level was increased at 91% of the users, 72% of overweight patients lost weight, 90% of those with chronic pain felt decrease in the pain, and another high percentage results in lessening symptoms at arthritis patients, lowering of blood pressure, improved digestion and better symptoms at patients with depression, allergy, diabetes, heart disease and even at cancer patients (Wang et al., 2002).

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