Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb...

Spring comes & a young man's fancy turns lightly to….RHUBARB..... if he's a fair-weather gardener, that is. If he's a true obsessive, he's probably already harvested his first sticks! Mine are still fighting the battle with the slugs.

Love it or hate it – you’ve got to admit its versatile and easy to grow. Now I knew you could eat it (cooked of course, yum, and so good for those of us on a low GI diet (1), you can clean your burnt pots with it by cooking said rhubarb in them (it's the oxalic acid yah know) and you don’t want to cook it in galvanised iron pots, for fear of poisoning yourself as the acid leaches out the zinc. But now apparently you can use it as an antiseptic mouthwash! (2). Whatever next. Apparently the rhubarb extract is better than yarrow or chamomile but not so effective as straight chlorhexidine, the standard antiseptic in commercial mouthwashes. Still the authors seem encouraged and intend to pursue this line of investigation. I came across this article during "screening": that's the name we editors use for selecting articles for abstracting/indexing in our databases. Of course we also sometimes refer to it as *****. 

The  abstract should be on Global Health by the middle of May, so keep an eye out for it!

So I wondered, what else is on Global Health, Global Health Archive and CAB Abstracts, our  three databases: is rhubarb even more versatile than I thought? Well the rhizomes contain a smooth muscle relaxant (3),  it was used to control post-dysentery diarrhoea in 1st world war hospitals (4), they’ve investigated it as a treatment for lip herpes (5), the anthraquinones in the uncooked roots of Chinese rhubarb, which is used in traditional medicine as a purgative amongst other uses,  can be nephrotoxic (6).

There’s even a paper comparing the pharmacokinetics of oral dosing of rhubarb extract  vs enema (7). Such information is relevant as apparently rhubarb extracts are useful in reducing Blood Urea Nitrogen  in patients with chronic renal failure and may prevent or delay progression to end stage uremic syndrome.

BUT excuse me guys, I’m sticking to mine by mouth.

1. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2002, Vol. 76, No. 1, pp. 281S-285S
2. Majallah i Dandanpizishki (Journal of Islamic Dental Association of Iran), 2006, Vol. 18 No.6, 
    [persian article with english abstract, NOT yet on the database but soon will be]
3. Phytotherapy Research, 2007, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 186-189
4. Jl. Roy. Army Med. Corps., 1918, June, Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 593-394
5. Zeitschrift für Phytotherapie 2005, Vol. 26, No. 6
6. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2006, Vol. 107, No. 2, pp. 308-311
7. American Journal of Chinese Medicine, 2005, Vol. 33, No. 6, pp. 839-850

 

Comments

[Ruth]

I love rhubard and have to admit after reading this, for a short second I lost my craving. I agree, I'll stick to mine by mouth. Does anyone know anything about cranberries? I'm just curious. There seems to be so much out there about their benefits.