"Amla vs. Drugs for Cholesterol, Inflammation, and Blood-Thinning"
Indian gooseberries, otherwise known as amla,
have been touted as everything from a cancer fighter
to a hair tonic to a refrigerant,
whatever that means— what like, Freon?
Not to mention, a snake venom detoxifier.
Complete with fancy diagrams,
but based on what kind of research?
Yes, dietary intake of both turmeric and amla
increases the life span… of fruit flies.
But do we really care about the effects of amla on the lifespan,
or the sexual behavior for that matter, of fruit flies?
How do you even study the sexual behavior of fruit flies?
Why, obviously, you just introduce a virgin female
and a bachelor male into an Elens-Wattiaux mating chamber.
Can you imagine having an insect mating chamber
named after you,
and it looks like there were two
fighting over naming rights;
so, they had to go with both!
Then, it’s just a matter of getting out a stopwatch.
20 minutes is the average duration,
but almost a half-hour on amla,
the studly beast,
and it dropped the mating latency,
the time between when they were introduced
to one another in the chamber
and when they started getting busy
from 10 down to 7…
...seconds. They don’t mess around.
Well, actually, they do mess around—
and quite rapidly.
And, on amla, they lay more eggs,
and more hatch into larva.
But, just like when you hear amla
is the best medicine to increase lifespan,
you’re probably not thinking about flies.
When you read that amla
may have a potent aphrodisiac effect,
you’re probably not thinking,
“more maggots!”
Now, there was this study that found
extraordinary improvements in total cholesterol
and LDL cholesterol—in actual humans,
but that was compared to placebo.
What about compared to simvastatin,
a leading cholesterol lowering drug, sold as Zocor?
Treatment with the drug produced
significant reductions in cholesterol,
as one would expect.
But, so did the amla.
In fact, you could hardly tell which was which.
Now note, this was only about a 10 to 15% drop
in total and LDL cholesterol.
In this study, the amla dose
was only 500 milligrams,
which is like a tenth of a teaspoon.
So, smaller than the eighth of a teaspoon a day.
And, it wasn’t just the powdered fruit,
but the powdered juice of the fruit,
which may have made a difference.
How about versus Lipitor,
the cholesterol-lowering drug known as atorvastatin?
No effect of taking placebos,
but significant improvements for the drug,
and significant improvements for two amla doses,
but again only about 15% or so.
Did they just use the juice again?
No, worse, some patented extract of amla.
So, instead of 5 cents a day,
it’s 50 cents a day,
and doesn’t seem to work as well.
But, because there’s this proprietary version,
at least there’s someone willing to pony up
the funds to do the research.
It’s like the cancer story.
For Indian gooseberries to become relevant clinically,
they’re praying that patentable derivatives
be synthesized.
Without the possibility of patents,
the pharmaceutical industry isn’t going to invest
in the research;
their shareholders wouldn’t let them.
It’s patents over patients.
But, without that research,
how can we ever prove its worth,
or worthlessness, for that matter?
So, drug and supplement industry interest
in patenting natural food product remedies
is a double-edged sword.
Without it, there would never have been this study
showing not only benefits for cholesterol,
but also arterial function, reducing artery stiffness
in the two amla extract groups and the drug group,
but not placebo,
as well as a dramatic drop in inflammation,
C-reactive protein levels cut in half.
So, amla, or at least amla extracts,
may be a good therapeutic alternative
to statins in diabetic patients with artery dysfunction,
because it has many of the beneficial effects
of the statins but without the well-known potential
adverse side-effects of the drugs,
including muscle damage or liver dysfunction.
The amla extract was also compared
to the blood-thinning drugs, aspirin and Plavix,
often prescribed after heart attacks,
and achieved about three quarters
of the same platelet aggregation inhibiting effect as the drugs,
significantly increasing the bleeding and clotting time,
where they poke you with a needle
and see how many seconds it takes you to stop dripping.
That’s actually a good thing if you have a stent
or something that you don’t want to clog up,
but it didn’t thin the blood
outside the normal range,
and so may not unduly raise the risk of major bleeding.
It also appears to decrease the effects
of stress on the heart.
They had people plunge their hand into ice water
and keep it there until the pain became unbearable.
This causes your arteries to constrict
and your blood pressure to go up,
but not as much if you’re taking an amla extract.
Good to know for your next ice bucket challenge.