Pau d'arco tea

Pau d'arco is an evergreen tree with rosy colored flowers belonging to the Bignonia family. Nearly 100 species of pau d'arco trees are known but only a few of these yield high quality material and it takes extremely skilled gatherers to tell the difference.The medicinal part of the tree is the inner lining of the bark, called the phloem (pronounced floam).Pau d'arco is also known as Lapacho, and by tribal names such as Taheebo tea and Ipe Roxo.

Most of the chemical analysis on pau d'arco tea has been performed on the heartwood of the tree rather than on the phloem, or inner lining of the bark, which is used medicinally. It is unclear why this has occurred. One reason may be that the heartwood contains enough quantities of a couple of important constituents, mainly lapachol and tabebuin, to satisfy current research interests. Once the therapeutic activity of those constituents has been thoroughly investigated perhaps researchers will turn their attention to the phloem. Until then, it is probably safe to assume that the living bark contains a similar set of active constituents as the heartwood plus some others that make it more effective. Traditionally it is the living bark of a plant, especially a tree or shrub, that is used medicinally--not the heartwood. The reason is simple: the nutrients and substances used to sustain the life of the tree are found in greatest concentration in the cambium layer and phloem of the living bark.

Pull the bark off a tree and you will notice moist, very thin layers of tissue that seem to shred when picked at with the hands. This is the cambium layer. Its purpose is to create new tree tissues, such as phloem.

Lapachol is just one of a number of plant substances known as napthaquinones(N-factors) that occur in pau d'arco. Anthraquinones or A-factors comprise another important class of compounds. The N-factors are not common except in herbal tonics. Seldom do both N- and A-factors occur in the same species. Several of the remarkable properties of pau d'arco may be due to a probable synergy between A- and N- factors.

Quercitin, xloidone and other flavonoids are also present in pau d'arco.

The native Indians of South American countries have used pau d'arco for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, there are indications that its use may actually ante-date the Incas. Before the advent of the Spanish, the Guarani and Tupi-Nambo tribes in particular used great quantities of pau d'arco tea.

Pau d'arco can be applied externally and internally for its many treatments. The Guarani, Tupi and other tribes called the pau d'arco tree "Tajy," meaning "to have strength and vigor,"or simply, "The Divine Tree."

As early as 1873 physicians were aware of theactions of pau d'arco. Dr. Joaquin Almeida Pinto and Dr. Walter Accorsi wrote in depth reports regarding the use of pau d'arco which can be sourced and read from many different places on the internet.

However the science of pau d'arco began properly with the work of Theodoro Meyerin Argentina . Perhaps the most important thing Meyer accomplished was to bring pau d'arco to the attention of the rest of world, to extract the plant from the jungles of the Amazon and announce, "Here is a folk remedy with great promise for all mankind."

Independent of Meyer a physician in Brazil in about 1960 Dr. Orlando dei Santiused pau d'arco to treat his brother who was lying in a Santo Andre Brazil hospital . Other physicians joined the team and after a few months several case histories were recorded.

Because of the work at the Municipal Hospital of Santo Andre, pau d'arco has become a standard form of treatment for some kinds of cancer and for all kinds of infections in medical establishments throughout Brazil.

In 1968, Dr. Prats Ruiz of Concepcion, Argentina, successfully treated three casesin his private clinic. Some of these results were widely published and also helped to establish the popularity of pau d'arco among the "civilized" inhabitants of South American countries.

American physicians of course tend to look disparagingly upon the clinical evidence of South America, preferring instead sanitized evidence from their own laboratories. Pharmaceutical companies regularly screen pau d'arco for the presence of substances that could be the basis for new drug applications. However, no isolated component of pau d'arco comes anywhere close to being equal to the combined activity of the whole herb... ( and you cannot patent a natural herb! ) ...

The main problem with American research on the plant is the tunnel-vision with which the work is engaged. Without any understanding of the ultimate source of the plant's effectiveness researchers routinely isolate what they think should be the active component and apply it in standard screening trials.It didn't surprise anyone that the trials performed by the National Cancer Institute were less than convincing. And it also didn't surprise anyone when that same institute rejected out-of-hand the highly positive results obtained by many non-American researchers who utilized different methods. The self-serving tendency of the American medical/regulatory establishment to accept only its own research is indulged by the rest of the world's scientific community with polite and somewhat amused patience, as they wait for America to grow up.

Pau d'arco has been extensively investigated for potential anti-cancer activity. Even the National Cancer Institute has gotten in the act, but in their own typical way they managed to drop the ball before achieving success. They restricted their investigations to lapachol and once they found that this substance had side effects that offset its potential therapeutic benefits they abandoned the project. The holistic practitioner readily perceives the fallacy of that approach and is skeptical of applying isolated herbal constituents believing the whole herb should be used as Mother Nature intended complete with all its synergistic activity.

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