Chaparral

Chaparral
from the paracelsus list
for details, contact mitch@teleport.com


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>> Does anyone have any experience with Chapperal? I have probably
>>spelled that wrong, but I know it is an herb found in desert regions,
>>out west here in the US as my understanding is that Indians did use
>>it. I think it is a bush, more or less. I have read stories of how
>>it works against cancer.
>
>Chaparral (Larrea tridentata) is a madly successful allelopathic shrub from
>the Southwest part of the U.S., northern Mexico and (in a slightly varied
>form) western South America. Because of its slow growth, strategies for
>surviving little or no rainfall and even being moderately freeze-resistant,
>it has individuals in the Imperial Valley in California that have been
>carbon-dated to 11,500 years old. That makes it the oldest living organism
>(outside of a slime mold in Turkistan named Fred...another story) on the
>planet.
>
>It has a long history of multicultural herb usage, among which is cancer.
>There HAS been some serious examination and biologic studies done on the
>plant: it seems to help simple skin cancer and some forms of pre-cancerous
>oral leucoplakia, but it has also been shown to AGGRAVATE some other
>neoplasias...I would leave it alone for cancer therapy. It is a
>physiologically active anti-oxidant, and may inhibit a few types of
>neoplasias, but it will also, in larger and extensive doses, inhibit the
>rate of combustion of the hot-burning granulocytes of innate immunity,
>thereby acting as an immunosuppressant and derailing, at least in early
>conditions, the wholistic approach of trying to jump-start resistance to
>rogue cells that seem to have bypassed a compromised immune system.
>
>No advertisement here, but there is a faily lengthy monograph on Larrea in
>my book MEDICINAL PLANTS OF THE DESERT AND CANYON WEST, Museum of New
>Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 1989. Otherwise, here is an outline I pulled from
>my database:
>
>LARREA (Chaparral, Gobernadora, Creosote Bush)
>
> Plant Part............ Leafing Branches
> PREPARATION:
> Tincture........... [1:5, 75% alcohol]
> Dosage........... 20-60 drops
> Capsules........... #00
> Dosage........... 2-4 a day
> Strong Decoction
> Dosage........... For topical use
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> SPECIFIC INDICATIONS:
> Arthritis, allergies and hypersensitive, auto-immune
> type conditions, where stress, diet aggravate notably.
>
> CONTRA:
> Is an anti-oxidant (contains NDGA); can cause short term
> hemolysis-like symptoms from its effects on liver,
> spleen functions and is not reasonable for overt pathologies.
>
> ALL REFERENCES IN THE PROGRAM:
> Chronic biliousness with symptoms of autointoxication, sluggish
> liver catabolism.
> Dyspepsia, aggravated by fats and proteins.
> Nausea in morning, after fatty breakfast.
> Steatorrhea with ileocecal irritability.
> Vomiting, from fats, pastry abuse.
> Eczema, with chronic poor fat digestion, dry skin.
> As a bath in arthritis.
> Leukorrhea, supportive to local itching and pain (with Anemopsis
> (Yerba Mansa) as a sitz bath).
> Blood serum levels: SGOT, SGPT elevations with elevated bilirubin,
> no active hepatitis.
> Nutritional malabsorption in conjunction with lipotropic therapies.
> Cancer, supportive in skin cancers (externally).
> Hangover, liverish, dark circles under eyes.
>
>As far as it not being available in the health food industry...a bunch of
>WEANIES! Two cases of liver damage (true...they were VERY bad reactions),
>that were not directly traced to Larre...it was only a co-factor) no
>supportive implications in ANY literature (ours or theirs) to indicate why,
>no direct request from the FDA to withdraw anything, but the industry did a
>Duck and Cover drill and "voluntarily" withdrew Larrea (Chaparral) from the
>shelves ("seee? we's good guys"). Do you think Dr. Kessler gave a *%#&¤?§*?
>There are THOUSANDS of complaints to the FDA every year about Nutrisweet
>AND Prozac alone, and the tobacco industry attack has gotten LOTS more
>press and has more clout within the swinging-dick "My bureau is bigger than
>your bureau" power poltics of Washington. That is not to denigrate the
>need to accept herbal toxicology; there is little question of the potential
>liver damage from the high alkaloid content that has emerged from the
>recent Comfrey hybrids that were developed for warm-weather cultivation to
>supply increased commercial demands. It's just that several cases of
>iatrogenesis that related to Chaparral, without any mechanism known or
>ethnomedical history to implicate, is not enough to warrant the industry's
>reaction.
>
>Chaparral is actually a term used in botany and range management to
>describe a plant ecology made of dominant shrubs that are widely spaced,
>semi-drought resistant, and either aromatic or with sophisticated
>strategies for preventing evaporation during the day. Why Larrea got this
>Chaparral name is beyond me, although Dr. John Christopher might have been
>able to answer, since he knew some of the folks that brought Larrea into
>the fledgling health-food industry as Chaparral. HIS Larrea cure-all he
>called Cinema Tablets (marketed between 1965-75 I believe).

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