The highly purified extract may be useful one day to relieve high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease and skin cancer, according to an article about to be published in the Dec. 29 print issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

Phenolics, plant chemicals long known to have good effects on health, exist in lots of plant sources and have anti-inflammatory properties that include dramatically inhibiting the production of both nitric oxide and prostaglandin, excesses of which contribute to arthritis, pain and circulatory problems. This study doesn’t include tests on humans, but results are promising.

Encouraging at least to find that the Rainforest isn’t the only place we can count on Mother Nature to give us plant help with our medicines…