Most people might think mastic gum is something you chew and use to blow bubbles, but it's actually a resin used by ancient Egyptians and Greeks for embalming and in alcoholic beverages. More modern applications include treatments for everything from infections to cancer, although many of these uses haven't been supported in human clinical trials. Even so, mastic gum is a lot healthier than regular gum and could be a valuable tool in fighting several diseases.
Identification
Mastic gum, also called mastic, is a transparent yellow-green resin harvested from an evergreen shrub that grows primarily on the Greek island of Chios. It can be chewed, although it smells and tastes similar to turpentine. In dietary practice, it's primarily used in commercially produced capsules that typically contain 250 mg of mastic each. Mastic contains volatile oils and alcohols, with the essential oil further broken down into more than 70 compounds. Several of these compounds include antioxidants such as anthocyanins, tannins and tocopherol.
Cancer
In laboratory studies, mastic gum has demonstrated properties that protect against various cancer lines. A study in "Nutrition and Cancer" in 2006 found that mastic oil inhibited the growth and survival of a strain of malignant leukemia cells. A separate 2006 study in the journal "Cancer" also discovered that gum mastic inhibited androgen receptors that play an important role in the development of prostate cancer. But at the time of publication, there had been no trials confirming these effects in humans.
Cholesterol
Mastic gum also has been used to test its effects on cholesterol and levels of fatty lipids in the blood. Researchers in Greece published a study in 2007 in the "Journal of Ethnopharmacology" showing that a group of healthy older adults ingesting 5 g of mastic powder daily over 18 months exhibited a decrease in total cholesterol and levels of the harmful LDL cholesterol.
Gastrointestinal
Mastic's ability to improve benign gastric ulcers has been known for some time. One study from 1984 in "Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology" found that mastic provided relief of ulcer symptoms in 80 percent of patients versus 50 percent taking placebo, while endoscopy results showed healing occurred in 70 percent of patients on mastic versus only 22 percent of placebo patients. Mastic also was shown to improve inflammation in patients with Crohn's disease, a chronic illness of the gastrointestinal tract, in research published in a 2007 issue of the "World Journal of Gastroenterology."
Infections
Mastic has been studied in dentistry for use as an oral antiseptic and antibiotic. A study from Turkey, published in 2007 in the journal "Angle Orthodontist," found that chewing mastic gum for just 15 minutes led to a significant decrease of total bacteria and the specific strain S mutans in the mouths of test subjects, with researchers concluding that mastic gum might be useful in preventing tooth decay lesions.
References
- Drugs.com; Mastic; 2009
- "Nutrition and Cancer"; Mastic Oil from Pistacia Lentiscus Var. Chia Inhibits Growth and Survival of Human K562 Leukemia Cells and Attenuates Angiogenesis; H. Loutrari, et al.; 2006
- "Cancer"; Gum Mastic Inhibits the Expression and Function of the Androgen Receptor in Prostate Cancer Cells; M.L. He, et al.; June 2006
- "Journal of Ethnopharmacology"; Chios Mastic Gum Modulates Serum Biochemical Parameters in a Human Population; A. Triantafyllou, et al.; April 2007
- "Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology"; A Double-Blind Controlled Clinical Trial of Mastic and Placebo in the Treatment of Duodenal Ulcer; M.J. Al-Habbal, et al.; 1984
- "World Journal of Gastroenterology"; Chios Mastic Treatment of Patients with Active Crohn's Disease; A.C Kaliora, et al.; February 2007
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