Small Red Berry from Tibet Is Attracting a Lot of Attention
By BRITTANY OAT
July 14, 2006 – Although Ponce de Leon never found what he was looking for, the human quest for longevity continued.
Now nutritionist Earl Mindell, author of the bestselling book “The New Vitamin Bible,” believes he has discovered an anti-aging secret in the juice of a tiny, red berry called goji.
“I have never seen anything like this,” Mindell said.
Despite the fact that goji has only been tested on humans in one published study, a simple Internet search reveals hundreds of websites selling goji juice, dried goji berries and even goji plants.
Goji is now available in products on your supermarket shelves and has recently become the subject of some experimental cancer treatments. But does it work?
“We Are A Sick Nation”
Mindell said he learned about the medicinal properties of goji, also known as Lycium Barbarum, from an Asian healer he met on a visit to the Himalayan Mountains in 1996.
For more than 6,000 years, herbalists in China, Tibet and India have used goji because they believe it helps them regulate their blood pressure, prevent cancer, balance blood sugar levels and protect their body from premature aging, he said.
“In that part of the world it is not unusual for people to live to be 100 years old, Mindell said.
In Bapan Village, a remote town in Bama County of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China, seven of its 515 residents are centenarians, according to China’s 2000 census – that’s 1.4 percent of the population. As comparison, only about two-hundredths of a percent of Americans become centenarians, according to Census figures.
“We’re not dying of old age in this country, we’re dying of degenerative diseases,” Mindell said. “Wake up America: We are a sick nation.”
A 1994 study in the Chinese Journal of Oncology found that 79 cancer patients responded better to their cancer treatments when goji was added to their regimen.
Dr. Victor Marcial-Vega, an oncologist from Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, said that he agrees with those findings, and has been using goji to ease the side effects chemotherapy and radiation is his own cancer patients.
In his 2005 study, which has not been published, 80 percent of his patients who took goji while undergoing cancer treatment maintained a healthy blood count, and 87 percent experienced changes that indicated their immune systems may have improved, he said. “The results are so dramatic that the doctors will never go back to saying never use antioxidants with chemotherapy,” he said.
Commentary: I agree with Dr. Mindell 100%, I have never seen anything like it either. The testimonials we receive from happy customers are phenomenal. Since we [California Academy of Health] added camu-camu fruit to the juice the phones won’t stop ringing with orders for the juice. Consumers are becoming more educated about the health products available to them and that’s a good thing. “C.A.O.H. offers a superior goji juice product that today’s educated consumer is looking for, at an affordable price.” Dr. Marcus Ettinger DC, BSc.
