Avocado leaves tea - for cancer, osteoarthritis and obesity

Today, I am starting hereby a brand new label in this blog that will concern and discuss medicinal plants. I will not endeavour and dwell on the systematic fight homoeopathy versus clinical treatment, but'll only go on a little more in-depth research through the several types of plants available worldwide, and their immediate medicinal properties.   

As any other topic, this is an open discussion and I do accept visitors intervening for the sake of improving the quality of information put at your disposal and, who knows, to learn about some more of the incredible species that are out there, but because these days we live in concrete jungles, are far from our direct observation and us far-off from their stimulus. 

To avoid plagiarism I'd like to state that the image accompanying this post was taken from a website where you can find a personal perspective on avocado leaves and the cleansing of kidneys, an article that can be found in The Cure Manual (apparently referring to a teaching from Dr. Lorna Reyes). In the referred article you can find a simple way of preparing Avocado leaves tea with some good sequential images too!

And now what about the properties of this famous fruit, apart from the leaves?

Well, Ding et al., 2007 tells us about the chemopreventive characteristics of avocado fruit expressing that the phytochemicals present in this fruit "play an important role in cancer prevention". It is rich in important nutrients and has the great priviledge of being low in calories (322 in a single 201g avocado, according to thecaloriecounter.com). In avocado we have a small quantity of saturated fat and polyunsaturated fat, we have monounsaturated fat accounting for roughly 65% of total fat present in this fruit; we also have sodium, potassium, carbohidrates (fiber and sugars) and protein... and NO Cholesterol!!! There is also vitamin A and C, iron and calcium... and unnoficially, as I couldn't find any source to confirm it, more vitamin D than you can find in an egg!

As stated by Ding et al., 2007, "Studies have shown that phytochemicals extracted from the avocado fruit selectively induce cell cycle arrest, inhibit growth, and induce apoptosis in precancerous and cancer cell lines. Our recent studies indicate that phytochemicals extracted with chloroform from avocado fruits target multiple signaling pathways and increase intracellular reactive oxygen leading to apoptosis... These studies suggest that individual and combinations of phytochemicals from the avocado fruit may offer an advantageous dietary strategy in cancer prevention."

I would love to explain in more detail how these phytochemicals from avocado induce a protective system of response to cleanse the organism, but unfortunately and since I am not a registered student any longer I have no access to the full data and info of such research papers, therefore, all I can do for us is to just cross-link information and apply my own knowledge to the understanding of this subject. Thus, and after consulting Young-Joon Surh's article on Nature Reviews for Cancer one realises that the inhibition process takes place when phytochemicals reverse or retard tumorogenesis interfering with the stages of carcinogenic development, probably by interacting directly on the intracellular-signalling cascades as they are known to be the aims of several molecules; as it is triggered by the ones in the avocado fruit.

Even though no contraindications are known so far, and there are no known pregnancy/lactation risks associated with the avocado ingestion, nevertheless, avocado can cross-react when one intakes also bananas, melons, peaches, thus increasing one's sensitivity (according to drugs.com, last seen on the 15th of January 2011 - please visit this webpage if you'd like to know the profile of the avocado fruit in more depth). There is not much to be aware of regarding avocado's toxicology; only that apparently it has to be safely taken when combined with pharmaceuticals that have anticoagulant effects or any medication intended to prevent blood clotting.

On the other hand it may help on the osteoarthritis of the knee (Maheau et al., 1998) at 300 to 600 mg daily dosage - "avocado/soybean unsaponifiables treatment showed significant symptomatic efficacy over placebo in the treatment of symptomatic osteoarthritis, acting from month 2 and showing a persistent effect after the end of treatment".

That's all folks for now on The Toxicologist Today, I sincerely hope this article has helped you in a good way, for now and obviously for the future. Any questions I'll be please to research for you.