Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Uva Ursi
The Urinary Antiseptic
Family: Ericaceae; (includes Heath, Azalea, Rhododendron)
Genus and Species: Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
Also known as: Bearberry, Bear’s Grape, Upland Cranberry, Arbutus
Parts used: Leaves
Uva Ursi has been used as a diuretic and urinary antiseptic for more than 1,000 years by cultures as widely separated as the Chinese and American Indians. Today it is an ingredient in most herbal diuretics and urinary remedies and many weight-loss formulas. Even herbal conservative Varro Tyler, Ph.D., calls it “a modestly effective urinary antiseptic and diuretic.”
But uva ursi may not be effective if consumers eat certain foods while taking it-information some herbals fail to mention.
The Mark of Marco Polo
The Roman physician Galen used uva ursi’s astringent leaves to treat wounds and stop bleeding. But this herb was largely ignored by Western herbalists until the 13th century, when Marco Polo reported Chinese physicians using it as a diuretic to treat kidney and urinary problems. Polo’s famous travelogue repopularized uva ursi in Europe as a urinary and kidney remedy.
Uva ursis association with the kidney was strengthened by the medieval Doctrine of Signatures-the idea that a plant’s physical appearance revealed its Healing virtues. The herb grew in rocky, gravelly places, and at the time kidney stones were called gravel.
Kinnikinnik
North American colonists found the Indians had independently discovered uva ursi’s use as a urinary remedy. Native Americans also mixed its leathery leaves with tobacco and created the smoking mixture, kinnikinnik.
Uva ursi was incorporated into the U.S. Pharmacopoeia in 1820 as a urinary antiseptic and remained there until 1936. Chemists isolated the herb’s active constituent, arbutin, in 1852.
The 19th-century Eclectics recommended the herb for diarrhea, dysentery, gonorrhea, bed-wetting, and “chronic affections of the kidneys and urinary passages.”
Today homeopaths recommend a microdose of uva ursi for incontinence, blood in the urine, and kidney and urinary tract infections.
Contemporary herbalists continue to recommend uva ursi for kidney and urinary problems.