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Chapparal (creosote bush)
This common shrub of the American South-West, is usually prepared in the form of a tea. As expected, the pharmaceutical industry is again trying to out-do nature by exploring the anti-cancer properties of what they refer to as the "active ingredient," Nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA).
Chaparral is commonly referred to as the creosote bush. NDGA was shown by S. Birkenfeld to reduce the occurrence of colon cancer in rats, fed a chemical that induced that cancer.
PAGE 71 Cancer Confidential Keith Scott-Mumby MD, MBChB, PhDD.K. Shalini demonstrated NDGA’s ability to protect genes against carcinogens and published this experiment in Molecular Cell Biochemistry, 1990.
The breast cancer preventive effect of NDGA was demonstrated by D.L. McCormick and A.M. Spicer (Cancer Left., 1987).
Leukemia cell cultures were inhibited by NDGA (A.M. Miller, Journal of Laboratory Clinical Medicine, 1989) Human brain cancer cell growth was likewise inhibited by NDGA (DE. Wilson, Journal of Neurosurgery, 1989.)
Cancer cell inhibition was intensively explored in the doctorate thesis of J Zemora (Auburn University, 1984) Regression of the deadly melanoma and treatment of choriocarcinoma and lymphosarcoma have been sited by CR. Smart in Cancer Chemotherapy Reports, 1969, and American Cancer Society, 1971.
D. Vanden Berghe demonstrated the anti-cancer and anti-viral activity of other chaparral extracts and P. Train wrote of use as an anti-bacterial.
Because of a rare case in which signs of liver damage showed up after several months of taking chaparral leaf, M. Katz in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 1990, warned that "the public and the medical profession must be wary of all ‘harmless’ non-prescription medications, whether purchased in pharmacies or elsewhere."