Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Mistletoe
Christmas Gift for Blood Pressure
Family: Loranthaceae; all its botanical relatives are called mistletoe
Genus and Species: Viscum Album (European); Phoradendron Serotinum (American), also known as P. Tomentosum
Also known as: Viscum, Herbe de la Croix, Lignum Crucis
Parts used: Leaves, fruits (berries), young twigs
Mistletoe is best known as the plant under which people kiss at Christmas, a custom with an ironically gruesome origin. As a Healing herb, mistletoe is also fraught with irony. One scientific authority calls it “gentle … [and) nontoxic.” Others call it “poisonous,” and insist “all parts of the plant should be regarded as toxic.”
The truth lies somewhere in between. Mistletoe is potentially hazardous, but Europeans have used it extensively and apparently safely-to help treat high blood pressure and cancer.
The Kissing Herb
We owe the herb’s association with kissing to Norse mythology. Balder, god of peace, was slain by an arrow made of mistletoe. When his parents, god-king Odin and goddess-queen Frigga, restored him to life, they gave the plant to the goddess of love and decreed that anyone who passed under it should receive a kiss.
Early Christians believed mistletoe was a freestanding tree during Jesus’s time and that its wood was used to make the cross. God punished the plant for its role in the crucifixion by turning it into a parasite. This story gave mistletoe its Latin name, lignum crucis, wood of the cross, and its French name, Fler6e de la croix.
Ancient Controversy
Mistletoe is a parasitic shrub that grows in trees, rooting into their bark. Hippocrates prescribed the herb for disorders of the spleen, but most other ancient physicians, particularly Dioscorides and Galen, advised limiting this herb to external uses, foreshadowing the current controversy over its safety.
A French medical text of 1682 recommended mistletoe for “falling sickness” (epilepsy). and some herbals still recommend it for convulsions. (Ironically, high doses may cause convulsions.)
Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper reiterated Hippocrates’ recommendation, asserting the herb “doth mollify hardness of the spleen, and helpeth old sores.” He also advocated mistletoe for “falling sickness and apoplexy [stroke).” and advised wearing a sprig around the neck to “remedy witchcraft.”
Mistletoe Comes to America
Several Indian tribes used American mistletoe to induce abortions and to stimulate contractions during childbirth.
The 19th-century Eclectic text, King’s American Dispensatory, recommended both European and American mistletoe for epilepsy, typhoid fever, dropsy (congestive heart failure). and “hysterical” (gynecological) complaints: menstrual cramps, menstruation promotion, and relief from postpartum hemorrhage. King’s also warned that large amounts “possess toxic properties. Vomiting, catharsis, muscular spasms, coma, convulsions, and death have been reported from eating the leaves and berries.”
Koreans use mistletoe tea to treat colds, muscle weakness, and arthritis. Chinese physicians prescribe the dried inner stems as a laxative, digestive aid, sedative, and uterine relaxant during pregnancy.
American Versus European
Somewhere along the line, herbalists came to believe European and American mistletoe had opposite effects. European mistletoe was reputed to reduce blood pressure and soothe the digestive tract. while the American herb was said to raise blood pressure and stimulate uterine and intestinal contractions.
Contemporary herbalists are divided on mistletoe. Some say the two varieties have opposite effects. Others make no distinctions between them. Some consider the herb calming, asserting it reduces blood pressure, quiets the heart. and relaxes the nervous system. Others say it raises blood pressure and stimulates uterine contractions. In The Herb Book, John Lust. M.D., calls the berries poisonous: “Children’s deaths have been attributed to eating them.” In Weiner’s Herbal, Michael Weiner, Ph.D., disputes this: “There is good reason to believe … the reports of adverse effects and even death … are incorrect. There was no evidence … the plant Material ingested was really mistletoe.”