African lowland gorillas eat it all the time–and many of those kept in captivity who don’t get to eat it develop heart disease. Early African healers used it extensively to treat infections and inflammations. Now modern western scientists have caught on. Aframomum melegueta, a member of the ginger family, has recently been confirmed to dramatically lower inflammation in many situations.

The plant is rare and so very expensive at this time to harvest and process. But hope is that, like aspirin which is a synthetic version of a substance in willow bark, biotechnologists will be able to manufacture a synthetic version of Aframomum and use it to treat inflammatory diseases such as Alzheimers, arthritis, osteoporosis, and to combat the deadly antibiotic-resistant MSRA virus running rampant in hospitals today.

Nature comes to our rescue again.