National Autism Awareness Month and Mangosteen

The Source and the Power of Xanthones in Autism

I attend network marketing conferences throughout the year. During these

conferences a time is set aside to hear testimonies from participants regarding

their experience and successes using various products. I vividly remember

one mother describing the trials and tribulations her family, including their

autistic child, had endured while seeking treatments. She spoke plainly yet

with progressive emotion as she told about giving her child the same juice

of mangosteen fortified with minerals that she was taking. One day the

child said, “Mommy, I can think!” This simple dietary supplementation had

remarkably changed everything after so many prescriptions and sessions of

therapy had had very little impact.

There are numerous twenty-first-century scientific journal articles discussing

xanthones and in particular, alpha mangostin, which is present in the mangosteen fruit’s peel.

The peel, called the pericarp, is where the powerful antioxidants and ligands are highly concentrated. The

mangosteen pericarp is about one-quarter of an inch in thickness. It is green

when unripe and dark purple when ripened. The powerful antioxidants are

known as xanthones. There are about forty-plus xanthone phytomolecules in

mangosteen pericarp that have remarkable healing properties. The medicinal

properties of the mangosteen pericarp have been utilized by many generations

of Asians and more recently by those seeking the benefits of the juice in

products marketed today.

The standardized extracts of xanthones used in some formulation of

mangosteen juices derived from the outer rind, or peel, not from the white

“meat” inner part of the fruit. The rind of the partially ripened mangosteen

fruit yields polyhydroxy-xanthone derivatives called mangostin and betamangostin.

The pericarp of the fully ripe fruit also contains the xanthones

gartanin, beta-disoxygartanin, and normangostin (Nguyen, 2005). There is

considerable evidence linking prostaglandins with inflammation and pain

mediated through arachidonic acid, which is blocked by xanthones (Nakatani,

2002). There is also induction of apoptosis (cancer cell death) by the xanthones

present in the pericarp of the mangosteen fruit in vitro (Nagagawa, 2007).

National Autism Awareness Month

The references are found in my book

The Sweet Smell of Success Health and Wealth Secrets