Fwd: THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (07/05/03)

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THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (07/05/03)

 

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Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com

Newsletter #90 07/05/03

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MOSS REPORTS SUMMER SALE

 

 

 

 

 

THE ROOIBOS CANTATA

 

 

In Johann Sebastian Bach's famous Coffee Cantata, the

young girl, Lieschen, croons:

 

 

" Mm! how sweet coffee tastes,

More delicious than a thousand kisses,

Mellower than muscatel wine.

Coffee, coffee I must have,

And if someone wishes to give me a treat,

Ah, then pour me out some coffee! "

 

 

I know the feeling. In my daily rounds I find myself

gravitating to those stores (food coop, supermarket,

kitchen gadget emporium, etc.) that have a welcoming

carafe of coffee. But coffee is not healthful, and in

fact some people are exquisitely sensitive to the

effects of caffeine. Even decaffeinated coffee can

upset their equilibrium. Like many, I am always on the

lookout for the perfect coffee substitute. Tea (black,

green or white) is an obvious choice, and I drink a lot

of it, but this also contains caffeine. And so I scour

the health food store shelves, looking for something

that will give the kick of a cup of java but be entirely

caffeine-free.

 

 

I've tried them all. The chicory-and-grain based coffee

substitutes and I go way back. The tea-flavored herbal

beverages. The strange tasting Asian beans. And more

tisanes of chamomile or berry leaves than you can shake

a branch at. I can't say I've found the perfect

caffeine-less jolt, but lately, I have been enjoying a

beverage called Rooibos (pronounced Roy-boss), or

African red bush tea. Rooibos is a nice, strong

beverage, well worth adding to your morning

armamentarium.

 

 

First of all, Rooibos is tea only in the sense that it

is hot, brewed and is derived from a plant. It is

decidedly not " tea " in the botanical sense of being

part of the Camellia sinensis family. Rooibos is from

the leaves and stems of Aspalathus linearis, a legume.

 

 

Roobios means literally " red bush " in Afrikaans. It

grows in abundance on the Cederberg Mountains above

Cape Town, and is the traditional drink of the

indigenous population of South Africa's Western Cape.

It can be picked wild but these days it is more

commonly cultivated in plantations. Local people have

harvested the wild plants for hundreds of years. They

made tea by bruising the spiky leaves of the bush with

wooden hammers and leaving them out to ferment. A

botanist named Carl Humberg first reported the

resulting beverage in 1772.

 

 

Commercial exploitation began in 1904 when Benjamin

Ginsberg, an immigrant from Czarist Russia, found local

folk drinking it in abundance. Mr. Ginsberg's family

was in the tea business and so he immediately saw the

commercial potential of 'mountain tea'. During the late

1920s, its popularity spread throughout the Cape.

Pieter le Frans Nortier, a South African doctor and

amateur botanist, encouraged widespread cultivation of

the tea. Rooibos' big break came during World War II

when it became nearly impossible to get regular Ceylon

tea. Red bush tea gained favor as an ersatz, or

substitute, tea throughout the British Empire, and it

continues to be popular to this day, now being exported

to 135 countries around the globe

 

 

The retail cost of red tea in the health food store is

a reasonable $13-$15 per pound. You can buy it as is,

or gussied up with other herbs and spices. Republic of

Tea sells an excellent " Red Chai " that also contains

cinnamon, orange peel, ginger root, cardamom seeds,

black pepper, star anise and clove. It is delicious but

the price is $7.95 for 2.8 ounces, which works out to

over $45 per pound.

 

 

So what exactly can Rooibos do for you? By reputation,

it is a 'miracle tea' that is widely used for nervous

tension, allergies (dermatitis), and various digestive

problems (Bramati 2002). Rooibos is a good source of

vitamin C, as well as small amounts of magnesium,

phosphorus, sodium, chloride, and potassium. It

contains no caffeine and, unlike regular tea, does not

interfere with iron absorption (Hesseling 1979).

Rooibos also contains many antioxidants known as

flavonoids, such as aspalathin, rutin, and orientin

(Bramati 2002). These antioxidants function as free

radical scavengers, preventing damage to normal cells.

 

 

 

Building the Immune System

 

 

 

There are currently about 20 scientific articles on the

topic of Rooibos tea. Most of this research has been

carried out in Japan, which has as lively an interest

in tea as any other country on earth.

 

 

Scientists at the University of Shizuoka, Japan,

compared the ability of green, black and red teas to

stop mutations caused by chemicals. " Intake of tea

might suppress the mutagenic activity of certain potent

mutagens in human beings, " they wrote. The clear winner

was red tea, which operated by a mechanism different

from regular tea - " several unknown antimutagenic

components could be responsible for its effect, " is how

they put it (Sasaki 1993).

 

 

According to researchers at the University of Nagasaki,

red tea also counteracts the cancer-causing properties

of radiation. In an experiment to test the protective

effect of red tea, a mouse cell line was zapped with

cancer-causing rays. The researchers found that the

expected transformation of normal into cancerous cells

was reduced as the exposure to Rooibos increased. At a

certain level, the transformation was reduced to next

to nothing (the 'spontaneous level'). Suppression of

cancer formation was highest when Rooibos was present

during the entire incubation period (Komatsu 1994).

Green tea wasn't nearly as powerful in this respect as

red tea.

 

 

At Japan's Iwate University researchers looked at

Rooibos' ability to protect against damage to the

central nervous system caused by aging. Young female

rats were allowed to drink their fill of Rooibos tea

for 21 months. They were then compared to rats that

drank only water. The scientists searched for the

presence of harmful chemicals called lipid peroxides in

the two groups. There was indeed a build up of harmful

chemicals in the water-fed, but not the Rooibos-fed,

rats.

 

 

They then took MRI scans of the brains of young rats,

of water-drinking older rats and of Rooibos-drinking

rodents, looking for the decline in the intensity of

the MRI signal that is typical of aging. There was in

fact a decrease in signal intensity in the brains of

the old water-drinkers, " whereas little change of the

signal intensity was observed in MR images of the same

regions [of the brains, ed] of 24-month-old rats " who

were allowed to drink Rooibos. In fact, their MRIs

" were similar to those of young rats. " The scientists

concluded that long-term use of Rooibos " prevented

age-related accumulation of lipid peroxides in several

regions of rat brain " (Inanami 1995).

 

 

Rooibos may also be good for the immune system. At

least, in one test it increased both antibody and

interleukin-2 (IL-2) production. After a detailed

study, scientists at Okayama University concluded that

" Rooibos tea intake may be of value in prophylaxis

[prevention, ed.] of the diseases involving a severe

defect in…immune response such as cancer, allergy,

AIDS, and other infections " (Kunishiro 2001).

 

 

There are also polysaccharides in Rooibos that seem

able to prevent HIV infection, at least in the test

tube. One such polysaccharide " almost completely

inhibited the binding of HIV-1 " to experimental cells

(Nakano 1997a). Scientists concluded that " it is

probable that acid polysaccharides from Rooibos tea

were extremely safe, and that HIV infection may be

suppressed by daily intake of the alkaline extracts of

Rooibos…, " according to an article in the journal

Leukemia (Nakano 1997b). That's pretty impressive,

although no clinical trials have yet been done on

Rooibos in the prevention of AIDS, or any other disease,

for that matter.

 

 

Why not? The reason may be that Rooibos is just too

inexpensive and plentiful - and, more to the point,

non-patentable - for anyone to care. Yet there is an

awful lot of potential benefit in a tea that costs a

few pennies per cup.

 

 

Bach understood the people-pleasing power of a good cup

of coffee as well as its addicting qualities. Were he

alive today, he might write a Rooibos Cantata, about

the wonders of coffee's formidable non-caffeinated

competitor.

 

 

 

 

--Ralph W. Moss, PhD

 

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NOTE: There will be no newsletter next week (July 7th - 12th)

as Dr Moss is traveling.

 

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References:

 

 

Hesseling PB, Klopper JF, van Heerden PD.

[The effect of rooibos tea on iron absorption]

S Afr Med J. 1979 Apr 14;55(16):631-2.

 

Inanami O, Asanuma T, Inukai N, Jin T, Shimokawa S,

Kasai N, Nakano M, Sato F, Kuwabara M. The suppression

of age-related accumulation of lipid peroxides in rat

brain by administration of Rooibos tea (Aspalathus linearis).

Neurosci Lett. 1995 Aug 18;196(1-2):85-8.

 

Komatsu K, Kator K, Mitsuda Y, Mine M, Okumura Y.

Inhibitory effects of Rooibos tea, Aspalathus linealis,

on X-ray-induced C3H10T1/2 cell transformation.

Cancer Lett. 1994 Feb 28;77(1):33-8.

 

Nakano M, Itoh Y, Mizuno T, Nakashima H. Polysaccharide

from Aspalathus linearis with strong anti-HIV activity.

Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 1997 Feb;61(2):267-71.(1997a)

 

Nakano M, Nakashima H, Itoh Y. Anti-human immunodeficiency

virus activity of oligosaccharides from rooibos tea

(Aspalathus linearis) extracts in vitro. Leukemia. 1997

Apr;11 Suppl 3:128-30.(1997b)

 

Sasaki YF, Yamada H, Shimoi K, Kator K, Kinae N. The

clastogen-suppressing effects of green tea, Po-lei tea

and Rooibos tea in CHO cells and mice. Mutat Res. 1993

Apr;286(2):221-32.

 

Shimoi K, Masuda S, Shen B, Furugori M, Kinae N.

Radioprotective effects of antioxidative plant flavonoids

in mice. Mutat Res. 1996 Feb 19;350(1):153-61.

 

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

 

 

The news and other items in this newsletter are

intended for informational purposes only. Nothing in

this newsletter is intended to be a substitute for

professional medical advice.

 

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