Catching on
A time-honored arthritis-relieving herb has started receiving mainstream attention.
The first time regular Nutrition & Healing columnist Kerry Bone wrote about Boswellia was back in 1999. Now, eight years and dozens of articles (by Kerry and many other herbalists and natural medicine practitioners) later, it looks like the mainstream is also catching on to this herb’s healing potential.
According to all of these articles, including the most recent one by BBC News, Boswellia, which you might know by its other name, frankincense, helps ease the pain and stiffness associated with osteoarthritis.
In the study covered by BBC, 70 patients with severe arthritis in their knees were divided into three groups: one group was given a high-dose Boswellia capsule, another was given a low-dose capsule, and the final group was given a placebo. After just a single week, the patients taking Boswellia reported less pain and stiffness compared to the placebo group. And the benefits lasted the entire duration of the study (90 days).
While these sorts of benefits have been seen in numerous other studies over the years, the “experts” are still hesitant to recommend Boswellia for treating arthritis (after all, unlike Big Pharma, none of the Boswellia manufactuerers are forking over big-ticket items like all-expense-paid-trips and other incentives for recommending the herb). But whether or not it gets the official thumbs up from the so-called health “authorities,” Boswellia has a long history of success when it comes to relieving arthritis pain and inflammation — not to mention a number of other benefits as well.
To find out more about this herb, and what Kerry Bone has written about it over the years, search the Nutrition & Healing archives by logging on with the username and password listed on page 8 of your most recent issue, then entering “Boswellia” into the search field.
Source:
“A herb known as ‘Indian frankincense’ can redule the symptoms of arthritis, US researchers have suggested,” BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/), 8/1/08
