What has been known in Asia for hundreds of years, and is just being discovered by people on other continents,
is the many healing and medicinal properties of the mangosteen fruit. Mangosteen research is sweeping the nation,
as all sorts of people are thirsting for knowledge about this exotic Southeast Asian tropical fruit.
There is a lot of interest concerning the health benefits to be derived from the Mangosteen, which incidentally
is not related to the mango, despite popular belief.
The mangosteen or Garcinia Mangostana is a tropical evergreen tree and is known as “Queen of the Fruits” in Asia
where it grows naturally. The tree grows from around eight to twenty five meters in height and bears the mangosteen
fruit which is an edible reddish fruit which has a rather hard outer rind or pericarp. The tree is believed to have
originated in the Sunda Islands, which are part of the Malaysian Archipelago. It is from this ultra tropical region
of the world that the mangosteen is thought to be from and it continues to flourish in the ideal conditions as it
has done for past centuries.
The mangosteen is now being grown on some of the Hawaiian Islands, although it is not exported as is to the
continental United States due to fears that the mangosteen may harbor the fruit fly which could devastate other US
crops should the pest get into the country.
Mangosteen research has led to a facility in Hawaii that is working on creating supplements and additives to the
fruit to allow it to be able to be successfully transported to the United States without fear of the fruit fly. At
the present time, the mangosteen is not available legally as a whole fruit in the United States but, they are
available in cans or in frozen form.
Properties of Mangosteen Xanthones
It has been discovered through ongoing mangosteen research that the fruit, or more specifically, the pericarp,
contains some forty xanthones out of only two hundred known xanthones in the whole of nature.
A xanthone is an organic compound that was first introduced in 1939 as an insecticide. Xanthone currently takes
its use as a form of ovicide for coddling the eggs of moths or as a larvicide. It is also used in some medical
chemical activities, including usage as a way of finding urea levels in the blood. The chemical structure of
Xanthone forms the core of several naturally occurring compounds, including Mangostin.
Through mangosteen research, mangostin leads us right back to the Southeast Asian fruit. Mangostin is a vital
organic compound that is related to parts of the Mangosteen fruit and, quite likely, is what was involved in giving
the reddish fruit its name. Ongoing research into mangostin suggests that it has a variety of biological properties
that are beneficial to humans, including anti bacterial and anti cancer properties. Indeed, through research, more
and more is being discovered about this fascinating Queen of Fruits.