Abuta - Cissampelos pariera

Well, there was a lot of reading to be done to update the plant information on abuta.  There has been a significant amount of research published on abuta and/or its main active chemicals in the last ten years!  So far, research has confirmed that abuta has pain-relieving, fever-reducing, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, anti-allergic, bronchodilator, immunomodulatory, memory-enhancing, antidepressant, neuroprotective, anti-obesity, antimalarial, antiparasitic, anti-ulcer, anticancer, antioxidant, heart-protective, muscle-relaxant, liver protective, antidiabetic, cellular protective, antifertility, and antivenom activities.  Whew!  These documented actions do go a long way in explaining most of abuta’s traditional uses.  You can read the new information on abuta in the Tropical Plant Database and the new sitemap which will direct you to all files on abuta on the Raintree Website is accessible here.

What struck me most was all of the research done by several different unrelated research groups on abuta’s newly documented cellular protective actions (never recorded in traditional uses).  These scientists tried to damage lots of different cells in the bodies of animals with lots of different chemicals and toxins known to do damage to these cells.  Heart cells,  kidney and liver cells, gastric and stomach cells, brain cells… lots of cells!  And abuta protected them all from being damaged.  Wow, huh?  They even injected a specific type of snake venom which causes immediate cellular hemorrhaging into animals along with just a alcohol/water extract of abuta and there was no hemorrhaging at all!  None. Wow, again, huh?  I was impressed.  Of particular note, the manner and mechanism that abuta uses to protect brain cells has justified that it might be highly beneficial in the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.  I’m sure we’ll see more research in the future on that particular use of abuta.

Even more impressive was this specific cellular protective effect of abuta as it pertains to cancer, especially if chemotherapy is being used.  Tumors and cancers cause a big change in red and white blood cells and negatively affect other blood parameters.  Cancer’s effect also causes significant changes in the liver and liver cell counts.  When chemotherapy is used in the treatment of cancer, the toxicity of the chemo often causes toxicity to healthy cells, most especially in the blood and the liver.   One research group inoculated mice with lymphoma pre-cancerous cells and lymphoma tumors resulted.  In the animal group that got no treatment, the negative effects on blood and liver cells were evident and recorded.  In the animal group that got a chemo drug (5FU), these negative effects again, were evident and even greater.  Several groups of animals were given varying dosages of a methanol/water extract of abuta (ranging from 100-400 mg per kg of body weight of the animal) and there was absolutely no damage or changes in blood and liver cell counts and levels.  Not even at the lowest dosages used. Abuta protected these liver and blood cells from the cancer!  And, by the way, at the highest dosage of 400 mg/kg, abuta inhibited the tumor’s growth by 78%. Wow, again!

I wonder if abuta was administered to these animals along with the chemo drug, could it still protect the cells from damage?  I bet it could, and I bet we’ll be seeing new studies in the future reporting this.  It’s not too far-fetched – another rainforest plant, copaiba, has been studied recently and reported to reduce side effects of chemo drugs through a cellular protective effect, and it helped to make the chemo drugs work better against cancer.  You can read more about abuta and cancer in the new text in the Tropical Plant Database and in my book. You can also read the full research paper on abuta and lymphoma I am referring to here (warning: it might be too technical for the average reader).

The other BIG news on abuta is that it may well be a new cure for Dengue Fever.  Dengue is a viral infection carried and spread by a mosquito (much like malaria) and it’s all over the world in the tropics. Almost 400,000 people in the world get infected with dengue fever annually. Typically, where ever dengue can be found in the world, abuta can be found growing naturally (How cool is that?), including in India.  Starting in 2012, several studies were published by scientists in India that abuta can kill the dengue virus, prevent dengue infections and it lowers the high fever associated with the virus.  This group of Indian researchers have formed a partnership with a pharmaceutical company to produce a new abuta drug to treat dengue.  I don’t know if this new drug will ever reach the Amazon, but they just used a simple water/alcohol extract of abuta in their studies and these can certainly be prepared by local inhabitants in the rainforest to treat dengue fever themselves with it.  Abuta is found all over the Amazon rainforest.

With such a remarkable effect on this wide-spread virus, one has to wonder if abuta is capable of treating other disease-causing viruses.  I hope more research on abuta’s antiviral actions will be conducted and reported on in the future. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it!

In the meantime, it is still a wonderful remedy for menstrual pain, cramping and excessive bleeding and is being used to relieve the symptoms of fibroid tumors and endometriosis.  I created a Raintree formula for this purpose called Amazon Menstrual Support.  It’s also helpful for PMS (abuta is a documented diuretic and reduces water retention, and it has shown anti-anxiety and antidepressant effects to help with that PMS-related moodiness some women experience).  I also used abuta in a formula called Amazon Menopause Support and another called Amazon F-Tonic (a balancing female tonic formula) because of its studied actions in balancing female hormones.  Abuta has shown in animal studies to lower blood pressure and to have a protective and tonic effect on the heart.  I used it in the Amazon Heart Support formula I created for that purpose.  Abuta also has a long history of traditional use for kidney problems, including kidney stones and it has clinically demonstrated pain-relieving, smooth muscle relaxant (like the smooth muscles found in the kidney and urinary tract), and antispasmodic actions. I used abuta in the Amazon Kidney Support for those documented actions.  The Amazon Kidney Support formula was widely used and worked quite well for kidney stones; while a different formula called Amazon Urinary Support (which didn't contain abuta) which was used for kidney and urinary tract infections.

Abuta is a really good example of why herbal medicine drives conventional doctors crazy.   Conventionally trained MDs are used to prescribing one drug for one thing.  They just can’t wrap their head around the concept that one plant can be used for so many completely different things.  What they fail to understand is that drugs are just a single chemical, that mostly works in a single way (mechanism of action), and medicinal plants are the exact opposite of that!  A highly active medicinal plant like abuta can have well over 100 plant chemicals in it.  Abuta has 38 verified alkaloid chemicals alone! (Alkaloids are commonly found in plants and usually have demonstrable biological activities.) IF they can understand that concept, then the next question/worry is always… “Well, how do I really know how it will work if I don’t know the affects of all of these active chemicals by themselves, much less in combination with one another?”  When I tell them that he/she can’t quantify that, and that herbal medicine is based on the empirical knowledge of 100’s of years of knowledge of how these plants work (which results in the quantifiable traditional uses of the plants) that’s typically when I lose them and their eyes roll back in their head.   “Hocus-pocus, hee-bee-gee-bee stuff” they say.  I say, to each their own.  Especially when I oftentimes achieve better results with less side effects than they do.