Moringa Oleifera Against CVD, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s & Arsenic?

The Healthiest Drumstick

Moringa oleifera is a tree, whose leaves and pods have medicinal properties (as well as simply being very high in nutrients). It’s also called the drumstick tree in English, but equally often it’s referred to simply as Moringa. It has enjoyed use in traditional medicine for thousands of years, and its many benefits have caught scientists’ attention more recently. For an overview before we begin, see:

Medicinal utilization and nutritional properties of drumstick (Moringa oleifera)—A comprehensive review

Now, let’s break it down…

Anti-inflammatory

It is full of antioxidants, which we’ll come to shortly, and they have abundant anti-inflammatory effects. Research into these so far has mostly beennon-human animal studies or else in vitro, hence the guarded “potential” for now:

Potential anti-inflammatory phenolic glycosides from the medicinal plant Moringa oleifera fruits

Speaking of potential though, it has been found to also reduce neuroinflammation specifically, which is good, because not every anti-inflammatory agent does that:

In silico and pharmacokinetic studies of glucomoringin from Moringa oleifera root for Alzheimer’s disease like pathology

Antioxidant

It was hard to find studies that talked about its antioxidant powers that didn’t also add “and this, and this, and this” because of all its knock-on benefits, for example:

❝The results indicate that this plant possesses antioxidant, hypolipidaemic and antiatherosclerotic activities and has therapeutic potential for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

These effects were at degrees comparable to those of simvastatin.❞

~ Dr. Pilaipark Chumark et al.

Source: The in vitro and ex vivo antioxidant properties, hypolipidaemic and antiatherosclerotic activities of water extract of Moringa oleifera Lam. leaves

Likely a lot of its benefits in these regards come from the plant’s very high quercetin content, because quercetin does that too:

Quercetin reduces blood pressure in hypertensive subjects

For more about quercetin, you might like our previous main feature:

Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin

Antidiabetic

It also has been found to lower fasting blood sugar levels by 13.5%:

Effect of supplementation of drumstick (Moringa oleifera) and amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor) leaves powder on antioxidant profile and oxidative status among postmenopausal women

Anti-arsenic?

We put a question mark there, because studies into this have only been done with non-human animals such as mice and rats so far, largely because there are not many human volunteers willing to sign up for arsenic poisoning (and no ethics board would pass it anyway).

However, as arsenic contamination in some foods (such as rice) is a big concern, this is very promising. Here are some example studies, with mice and rats respectively:

• Protective effects of Moringa oleifera Lam. leaves against arsenic-induced toxicity in mice
• Therapeutic effects of Moringa oleifera on arsenic-induced toxicity in rats

Is it safe?

A popular food product through parts of Africa and (especially) South & West Asia, it has a very good safety profile. Generally the only health-related criticism of it is that it contains some anti-nutrients (that hinder bioavailability of its nutrients), but the nutrients outweigh the antinutrients sufficiently to render this a trifling trivium.

In short: as ever, do check with your doctor/pharmacist to be sure, but in general terms, this is about as safe as most vegan whole foods; it just happens to also be something of a superfood, which puts it into the “nutraceutical” category. See also:

Review of the Safety and Efficacy of Moringa oleifera

Want to try some?

We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

Enjoy!