Here is a great blog post from the BushDoctors Blog, highlighting the benefits of guava leaf extract – check it out!

I’ve been working to gather the latest research published on guava leaf extract, and am in the “digestion” process currently – sounds bad, but it’s true. It takes a bit of time for me to read, and re-read the studies to ensure that I can report accurately on them. The latest one I’ve been reading is “The Beneficial Effects of Psidium guajava leaf extract on diabetic myocardium,” out of Experimental and Toxicologic Pathology. I realize that it’s been a while since I’ve posted on a study, but there is more to come, I promise. Look for the full write-up tomorrow.

Thanks everyone!

Kristina

Blogger/author Sushma Joshi’s compelling thoughts on the gap between “modern” and “traditional” medicine in Nepal:

Last Tuesday, Kalpana Dhimal (28), hung herself after she couldn’t afford health care for her infant daughter. The baby died a day later. “Poverty-stricken mom hangs self,” was the headline of a national daily. According to the same report, the child was running a 105 degree fever. The nursing home demanded Rs.1,700 per day. Like many women, she didn’t ask her husband or family for the money. She chose to die instead.

Joshi’s article mentions the use of guava leaves to treat epilepsy. Read the full article here.

There are many health benefits of guava leaves for diabetics to lower their blood glucose levels and for eliminating toxins in the body that cause diarrhea. Guava leaves will also inhibit the activity of toxins already in the body. Drinking guava leaf tea can treat ulcers in the mouth, as well as ease discomfort from sore throats, laryngitis and mouth swelling. It may also be used as a topical treatment for wounds and infections because guava leaf has anti-bactorial properties.

I interviewed a Fillipino woman about her experience with guava leaves. Her family couldn’t afford to buy medicine, so it was common to use guava leaves for healing. They ate or boiled them into a tea for curing ulcers, healing wounds or lowering a fever. Check out the video above or on the Guava Leaf Extract Youtube channel.

On the evening of day two, I got online and made phone call after phone call.  “Do you carry guava leaf tea?”  I would ask.  “What kind of tea?” the response would be.  “Could you spell it?”  “One more call,” I told myself.  “Someone has to know SOMETHING.”

Then … someone did!  Drug Stop 22 had it!!  The poor woman on the phone did not understand my excitement, and so I explained.  I had been searching for days, I told her.  DAYS!  And I finally found someone who carries it!  The trail was warming back up.

Day three: I went to Drug Stop 22 and spoke with an employee named Melissa. She said she carried the tea because people requested it, but she didn’t know what they used it for.  She also told me that she was fairly sure guava leaf tea was sold in Chinatown.

So off I went to Chinatown.  I found guava leaf tea at one of the huge stores, Wing Hop Fung, and at another small market, BJ’s Market.  There were a couple different kinds of tea – one branded as a detox tea, another as a tea for diabetics.  At last, my efforts were panning out.  The women at the tea counter said they sold a decent amount of the tea, and that it was very beneficial for healthy blood sugar levels, as well as for the gastro-intestinal system.

Driving back to Las Vegas, I reflected on my trip.  What had I found?  Guava leaves have been used for many centuries, but by only a segment of the world’s population. Even in trend-setting L.A., it remains an herb popular only within Asian culture. The general population may be missing out, but we now know the baseline. And with the popularity of all things Asian, and with the huge number of tea and herbal retailers in Southern California, it may be only a matter of time before the guava leaf market expands.

My search for guava leaves in L.A. continues, and the trail grows warmer as I meet people of Asian descent who have enjoyed it in the past. But if I am to find people currently enjoying guava leaf’s benefits, I soon discover that I need a new game plan.

The next morning at Erewhon, one of the largest and best-known natural foods markets in L.A., I spoke with Shonie, a small-framed Filipino woman.  “Filipino guava leaves are the best guava leaves,” she told me with a smile. “My grandma used to get the stink really bad,” she said, crinkling her nose and waving her hands in front of her armpits. “She use guava leaves, and it goes away!  She’d boil them, then bathe in the water and pack the leaves under her arms.  It works very well!”

At the juice bar within one of the many Whole Foods I went into, I found Nancy, a woman also of Asian descent. She told me that her mom used to give her and her siblings guava leaf tea in the mornings when they were little while their parents drank coffee.  “I don’t know why they gave us guava leaf tea, but we always had it,” Nancy told me. “I like it, but I haven’t had any for a long time.”

At this point, I was both encouraged and discouraged.  I was starting to find people who were familiar with guava leaves, but unfortunately, I had yet to find any physical evidence of their presence in L.A..  I had exhausted the more obvious channels. I retreated back to my hotel to review my notes and make a new game plan.

Some of the earliest mentions of guava leaf in the Western world appear in the medical journal The Lancet, dating to the early 1800’s, as doctors chronicled their experiences in tropical locales, reporting on indigenous customs they discovered during their travels.  “For my own part,” writes Dr. J Hancock, “I think there is no method better adapted for the successful treatment of fevers in general, than that which is followed by certain tribes of Guiana, which consists of very little besides the use of aromatic vapour-baths and frictions; they take for this purpose the leaves of the guava, lime-tree… bruise and throw them into the bath. A similar practice is pursued by the Creoles of Martinique [for] fever, and with a success much greater than that attending the European practice” (Lancet 1830).  This early example of Western medicine borrowing knowledge from traditional or indigenous medicine is a practice recurring throughout history, and still continues today. Read more