Herb Of The Month: Prickly Pear

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Prickly Pear (Nopal In Spanish; Opuntia In Latin)

Our herb of the month is an edible one, often eaten as a vegetable for its medicinal benefit. Prickly pear cactus is a ubiquitous sight throughout the Southwest, with a wider range of growth than most cacti species, and is a very attractive one now for its April display of yellow or pink flowers. The green pads are the most distinctive part of the plant. They are oval or marquis shape flattened and about a foot long. They grow end to end and are often at right angles to each other. For this unusual appearance, the plant is used in landscaping, and even as material for a fairly dense, impenetrable living fence, which is a popular form of property boundary throughout Latin America. Mexican cuisine features nopal as an accompaniment to eggs, or as dried nopalitos.

So where’s the medicine in all this? Prickly pear is a very useful food for diabetics, because the presence of prickly pear in a meal has been found to lower the glycemic index for the foods it accompanies. [1, 2]

references

 

  1. Lowering Effect on Postprandial Glycemic Response of Nopales Added to Mexican Breakfasts. Montserrat Bacardi-Gascon, MD, Dulce Dueñas-Mena, BSC and Arturo Jimenez-Cruz, MD. Diabetes Care. Publishined online February 26, 2007.
  2. The glycemic index of some foods common in Mexico (article in Spanish, abstract in English). Frati-Munari AC, Roca-Vides RA, López-Pérez RJ, de Vivero I, Ruiz-Velazco M. Gaceta Médica Mexicana. 1991 Mar-Apr;127(2):163-70; discussion 170-1.
About the Author

Dr. Colleen Huber

Dr. Colleen Huber founded the NatureWorksBest Clinic, and now is currently on sabbatical from practicing medicine, while writing books and articles, and staying involved with the clinic. Dr. Huber has served as President of the Naturopathic Cancer Society and co-founded the American Naturopathic Research Institute / Naturopathic Oncology Research Institute. At NatureWorksBest Clinic, the data supporting the clinic’s results in cancer treatment can be found here. Dr. Huber was the principal keynote speaker at the 2015 Euro Cancer Summit, and in 2014 was a speaker at the World Congress on Cancer Science and Therapy, and at the International Congress of Naturopathic Medicine. Many of her health articles have appeared on colleenhuber.substack.com. Her writing includes her book Choose Your Foods Like Your Life Depends On Them, Manifesto for a Cancer Patient, and other books and articles. Dr. Huber authored the largest and longest study in medical history on sugar intake in cancer patients, which was reported in thousands of media outlets around the world in 2014. Her academic writing has appeared in The Lancet and Cancer Strategies Journal, and other medical journals.

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