Every Easter, thousands of American children participate enthusiastically in Easter egg hunts. Here in Georgia, the spring weather is mild, flowers bloom profusely, and the trees have full complements of leaves. There are at least a hundred places in our large yard prepared by Mother Nature as perfect hiding spots.

My wife and I hide the eggs early in the morning. We hide real dyed eggs, chocolate bunnies, and best of all, a huge chocolate egg decorated with icing and filled with dozens of smaller chocolate offerings. It is the real treasure, the one that is hardest to discover, and the one that elicits the greatest shouts of joy and excitements when it is finally found.

Research in the field of health can be a lot like an Easter egg hunt. Those who search for the truth in questions of health are called researchers. There are two major fields of health research: 1) the questioning and experimentation that takes place in the laboratories of universities and research centers and 2) the digging, mining, and refinement of the mountains of knowledge that exist in folk and traditional medicine.

Both fields are legitimate areas for research, but there is one important difference between the two. In the lab, scientists most often seek to discover new truths. This new knowledge is eventually used to treat disease in a new and novel manner. In the examination of folk and traditional medicine, researchers look for the how and why. They know a certain traditional intervention works, but why?

Joe Morton was looking for Easter eggs in Southeast Asia several years ago. He watched the people of that region enthused over the Mangosteen. He caught the excitement and passed his enthusiasm on to his brother David a researcher who also joined the hunt. David and Joe told me what they found, and soon we were all hunting. Imagine our excitement when we located over forty university studies from schools of medicine and pharmacy around the world! Mangosteen is no small egg, it is the big prize, the huge chocolate egg filled all sorts of wonders.

I still lose sleep thinking about what the Mangosteen means to the world of dietary supplements. Next to the xanthone-rich Mangosteen, every other supplement brought to market, like aloe vera and pycnogenol, are a little Easter eggs. Can you get your mind around it? The Mangosteen’s benefits spans a wide range of effects: anti-inflammatory (stronger than indomethacin), anti-microbial (against viruses, bacteria and fungi), anti-tumor (tested successfully against six chemotherapy agents), anti-aging, anti-fatigue, potent antioxidant effect, anti-atherosclerotic, antihistamine, and the list goes on!

The Mangosteen treasure chest has been opened and is bursting with benefits!