Mangosteen juice is one of the latest in a long line of fruit drinks claimed to have therapeutic benefits. Are the claims true? The answer is a bit difficult to determine, but we do know a fair amount about the fruit itself.

The mangosteen fruit should not be confused with the mango, which is an entirely different plant. The mangosteen is part of a family of tropical trees and shrubs group known as the Guttiferae, which secrete an acrid yellow resinous juice. Mangosteen's formal scientific designation is Garcinia mangostana (Campin 2004), and it is supposedly named after a French explorer, Jacques Garcin (1673-1751).

The fruit itself is purple in color and is the size of a small apple. It has a hard rind, or pericarp, and inside there are typically five to seven seeds surrounded by a sweet, juicy cover. In Asia, the mangosteen is called the "queen of fruits" for both its flavor and its profitability. Highly regarded for its flavor, the taste is said to be similar to pineapple or peaches.

While no one knows exactly where and when the mangosteen was first cultivated, one botanist, Julia F. Morton, believes it originated in the Moluccas and the Sunda Islands. Some experts also believe the 18-foot high trees were first domesticated in Thailand or Burma, and we know that wild mangosteen trees can be found in the forests of Malaya. In the 1800's, botanists brought mangosteen seeds to America, and many serious attempts were made to grow the trees there as well as in Africa, the Caribbean and central America. However, the plant is very sensitive - nursery seedlings die at 45º F, which foiled attempts to grow the trees in America. In fact, there are few if any mangosteens growing in the continental US.

The claims that mangosteen has medicinal benefits are many. For years dried mangosteen fruits have been shipped from Singapore to Calcutta and then on to China for medicinal use. In regard to anecdotal uses of mangosteen, botanist Julia Morton has written the following:

"The sliced and dried rind is powdered and administered to overcome dysentery. Made into an ointment, it is applied on eczema and other skin disorders. The rind decoction is taken to relieve diarrhea and cystitis, gonorrhea and gleet [a watery discharge, ed.] and is applied externally as an astringent lotion. A portion of the rind is steeped in water overnight and the infusion given as a remedy for chronic diarrhea in adults and children.

"Filipinos employ a decoction of the leaves and bark as a febrifuge and to treat thrush, diarrhea, dysentery and urinary disorders. In Malaya, an infusion of the leaves, combined with unripe banana and a little benzoin is applied to the wound of circumcision. A root decoction is taken to regulate menstruation. A bark extract called 'amibiasine', has been marketed for the treatment of amoebic dysentery."

Morton also writes that "the rind of partially ripe fruits yields a polyhydroxy-xanthone derivative termed mangostin, also beta-mangostin. That of fully ripe fruits contains the xanthones, gartanin, 8-desoxygartanin, and normangostin. A derivative of mangostin, mangostin-e, 6-di-O-glucoside, is a central nervous system depressant and causes a rise in blood pressure." A more complete listing of constituents is given at ethnobotanist Dr. James Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases (Duke 2004).

More recently, there have been claims on many web sites that mangosteen has positive effects in fighting cancer. Unlike the folk medicine applications described by Dr. Morton, the claim regarding cancer is a bit more serious. Is mangosteen really effective against cancer, or is it simply a wild marketing claim motivated by strong commercial motives?

There are just 29 articles on the topic of mangosteen in PubMed, the US National Library of Medicine database of 14+ million citations. A total of four of these studies relate to cancer. In one test tube experiment it was shown that a chemical compound found in mangosteen kills cancer cells as effectively as many chemotherapeutic drugs. It also appears that compounds found in mangosteen can inhibit the harmful Cox 1 and Cox 2 enzymes, and can also cause programmed cell death (apoptosis) in aberrant cells (Ho 2002). Mangosteen thus joins a fairly long list of naturally derived compounds that might potentially have some anticancer benefit.

Twenty-nine articles does not constitute a wealth of data. For example, by contrast, PubMed lists over 4,600 articles each on the topic of vitamin C, vitamin E and cancer, over 125 of which refer to clinical trials. Reputable researchers the world over, publish in PubMed-listed journals, yet the PubMed does not contain a single clinical trial of mangosteen in the treatment of cancer, or any other disease. So despite what one may read on the many websites promoting mangosteen, very little scientific evidence exists concerning its anticancer activity in humans.

Mangosteen juice is sold on many websites under many different product names, and the medical claims made are many. Unfortunately, there simply still is not enough scientific evidence available to be certain that any of the claims are true.



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