Cuachalalate tree ideal to combat gastritis

Until not many years ago, it was believed that the main cause of gastritis was a combination of factors that included stress. Today it is known that the most important causative agent is the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. To neutralize it, a group of scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has shown that the bark of the cuachalalate tree has chemical compounds capable of slowing or eliminating the microbe that causes chronic gastritis.

The team led by Dr. Irma Romero Álvarez, a researcher at the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM, has studied traditional Mexican herbal medicine in search of active compounds and alternative antibiotics against common diseases, such as gastritis. If the microbe is neutralized, long-term impacts such as gastric or duodenal ulcers and some cases of gastric cancer can be prevented.

Living with the bacteria

For the researcher of the UNAM, conventional treatments against Helicobacter pylori they fail in one in five cases, often because the microbe develops resistance to medicines. Part of the problem is that on many occasions gastritis produces no symptoms and health impacts are detected when it has already long been damaging the lining of the digestive system. It is estimated that in Mexico, 60 to 70% of the adult population already hosts the bacteria in their intestines. What, on the other hand, is not synonymous with illness. A large majority of these people coexist without problems with the bacteria and only in some cases gastritis occurs, in the form of persistent heartburn and burning, and in the worst of scenarios, such as ulcers or internal bleeding that must be treated immediately.

 

The prodigious Mexican herbalist

To date, academics have canvassed the therapeutic possibilities against H. pylori of at least 55 plants, which include from epazote and arnica to silverio and cancerina. The result is clear: 77% of them have bactericidal capacity between moderate and strong. Among the plants analyzed is the cuachalalate, known to scientists as Amphypteringium adstringens, and by the ancient Mexicans as "chachalaca tree". Its medical properties have been recorded for centuries: already in 1573 a Spanish expeditionary, Francisco Hernández, recorded that cuachalalate bark had antitumor capabilities and cold and drying properties.


Video Medicine: Para qué sirve CUACHALALATE? (March 2024).