Noni Articles & Studies

If you would like to submit an article or study to Hawaiian Herbal Blessings, send us an email noni@nonihawaii.com.

Noni: Research will begin to test the plant against cancer and its symptoms The noni plant, used in traditional healing throughout Polynesia, has become one of the most popular complementary treatments worldwide for all kinds of diseases. Yet, there is no evidence that the plant is useful medically, says Dr. Brian Issell, clinical sciences program director at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii. He has received a National Institutes of Health grant of $170,000 per year for two years to conduct the first scientific study of noni in humans. Noni, extracted from the Indian mulberry plant, has been used for more than 1,000 years in traditional healing practices of native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders and Asian populations... Read Full Article

University of Hawaii to begin Cancer Research
This Phase I study of noni in cancer patients represents a first step in the systematic study of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practices that draw on Asian and Pacific Island cultural traditions of healing to control cancer and its related symptoms. It is being supported by a $170, 000 grant over two years from the National Institutes of Health (R21 AT00896). The Principal Investigator is Brian F. Issell, M.D. Noni, extracted from Morinda citrifolia or the Indian mulberry plant, is included in the traditional pharmacopoeias of Native Hawaiians, other Pacific Islanders and Asian populations, and has been used to treat various diseases for hundreds of years. It is now commonly taken by cancer patients based on purported usefulness in the disease although there is little scientific evidence to either support or refute these claims. A large marketing enterprise and many different suppliers supports the food supplement's popularity. The broad long-range objectives which this study will initiate are to define the usefulness of noni extracts for cancer patients. The hypothesis to be tested is that noni at a specified dosing provides cancer patients with a sufficient benefit to toxicity profile to be useful as a therapeutic... Read Full Article

1999 Study Shows Anti-Tumor Activity of Noni
An immunomodulatory polysaccharide-rich substance from the fruit juice of Morinda citrifolia (noni) with antitumor activity. Hirazumi A, Furusawa Department of Pharmacology, John A., Burns School of Medicine, 1960 East West Road, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. The fruit juice of Morinda citrifolia (noni) contains a polysaccharide-rich substance (noni-ppt) with anti-tumor activity in the Lewis lung (LLC) peritoneal carcinomatosis model. Therapeutic administration of noni-ppt significantly enhanced the duration of survival of inbred syngeneic LLC tumor bearing mice... Read Full Article

Study Shows Noni Fights Tuberculosis Bacteria
Scientists believe they have found a significant new lead in the fight against one of the world's biggest killers, tuberculosis. They say that extracts from a plant used as a folk remedy in various parts of the world kill TB bacteria and could be the basis of a new drug. About two million people a year die from tuberculosis and researchers say new ways of tackling the disease are urgently needed as drug-resistant strains of the bacteria develop... Read Full Article

Behind Noni's Odd Flavor are benefits for health
Noni may be nasty, but you can hide the taste. Noni is a nobby little thing, compared to which the ordinary household potato is a beauty queen. Taste wise, noni's nasty. Taking a sip is a lot like licking the dirt off a rock. It's one of the injustices of life that so many things that are supposed to be so good for us taste so bad. But it need not be so, says Barbara Fahs, and owner of Hi'iaka's Healing Herb Garden in Keaau on the Big Island. "You shouldn't be taking anything if it makes you hold your nose when you take it or brush your teeth after you take it." ... Read Full Article

NONI Canoe Plants of Ancient Hawai`i
This is a fascinating plant, demanding of our respect. Its prolific beauty, bearing fruit year round...as if to say, "here I am, please use me." However, as you may already be aware, few of us are willing to make its intimate acquaintance. The aroma of its fruit is truly awesome. Some say "disgusting" or "horrid" or "stinks bad" or worse. And, it doesn't taste good either! Yet, it is well known to be one of the main healers among the traditional Hawai`i medicinal plants. It is said that this plant food is to be used when we are feeling really ill or really old... . Read Full Article

From Polynesian Healers to Health Food Stores: Changing Perspectives of Morinda Citrifolia(downloadable pdf; 945 KB) Dr. Will McClatchey, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Botany Department. Journal: Integrative Cancer Therapies 1(2); 2002 pp. 110-120

Nutritional Analysis of Noni

Noni article from Health Supplement Retailer Magazine
While Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming was busy accidentally discovering penicillin and ushering in a new era of disease treatment, residents in the Pacific Islands were content to sip noni cocktails. "Antibiotics will wipe out illness entirely by the end of the 20th century!" American scientists boldly predicted. The 20th century is yesterday's news and antibiotics are not cure-alls. Frustrated by the pharmaceutical industry, rising costs of medical treatment and side effects that accompany some antibiotics--combined with a heightened desire to age gracefully--many consumers decided to look to nature. Echinacea, ginseng and St. John's wort experienced an unprecedented buying frenzy in the 1990s as if the age-old remedies were brand-new products... Read Full Article

Noni - it grows here Maui Time Magazine
Being sick can be gross sometimes. Illness will come with its snotty noses, vomiting, gurgling coughs that eject blood and iridescent green phlegm, foul smells emanating, I don't have to go on any further, do I? (I probably didn't have to go that far). Sometimes, to triumph over rot and disintegration, you've got to come back with something just as gnarly. Physicians will slice open your body, irradiate you, saturate your fluids with stuff toxic enough to kill all the little critters in you but not quite enough to bring you down with them. Back in the day you would let leeches suck your blood for hours and pack alligator dung over certain areas of the body (really). Some people drink their own pee and give themselves stitches. Effectiveness of these remedies aside, illness is a challenge to your spirit and diving into treatment, however putrid or laborious it might be is to face that challenge. Here the challenges grow on trees. The expansive yin-energized tropics, where sickness tends to be of the moist and swelling and festering kind, have blessed us with a tree that bears a healing fruit already swelling and putrid as it grows, ready to take on an astonishing array of serious ills. After I took my first bite of a ripe noni fruit, I thought to myself, in between gags, if I'm strong enough to eat this fruit I KNOW I'M STRONG ENOUGH TO GET BETTER! ... Read Full Article

Noni (morinda citrifolia) Fruit and its Uses New Hope Media Magazine
One of the primary challenges in the field of botanical medicines is to effectively translate a beneficial traditional folk remedy into a beneficial shelf stable product. In Polynesia, ripe noni fruit, Morinda citrifolia, is put into a container, where it quickly decomposes and ferments. The pungent amber juice that remains at the top of the fermented fruit is consumed daily as a prophylactic, to enhance overall vitality and well being... Read Full Article

Remedy of the Gods
Feeling blue? Life got you down? Ancient natural medicine from Hawaii might be just what the doctor ordered. Hawaii, long dependent on tourism and sugar, has found a new treasure buried in its own backyard. Noni, prized by South Pacific islanders for hundreds of years for its natural healing properties, now looks set to join tea tree oil, St. John's Wort and aloe vera on the shelves of herbal wonder preparations... Read Full Article

The Next Kava? Noni Hits The Mainland New Hope Media Magazine
As the world becomes a smaller place, remedies that once were regional are now going global. Following in the footsteps of its island cousin kava, noni is establishing a position in the herbal world. Indigenous to Southeast Asia, noni (Morinda citrifolia) was domesticated and cultivated by Polynesians, first in Tahiti and the Marquesas, and eventually in Hawaii. Today noni ranges from Tahiti to India and grows in the Caribbean, South America and the West Indies... Read Full Article

Noni: Nature?s Health-Enhancing Fruit Positive Health Magazine
Morinda citrifolia is an evergreen plant that has been used by humankind as both food and medicine for millennia. Growing in various parts of the world, including parts of Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas, the oldest known reference to the plant as a medicine dates back several thousand years to ancient Sanskrit Ayurvedic medicinal texts in India. Known as Noni in Hawaii, the plant was brought to Polynesia from the East by migrating settlers and has been used by the people of Polynesia to treat a wide variety of health disorders for over 2000 years; yet it is only recently that its medically active constituents have been identified and its healing action begun to be explained... Read Full Article

Articles about Hawaiian Healing and Papa Kalua

A Choice of Cure Hale Pai Pacific American-News Journal
I first heard about Kalua Kaiahua a year ago when I was at `Ulupalakua Ranch on Maui, working on a documentary about Hawai'i's legendary paniolo, Ikua Purdy. Some of the people there talked of Papa Kalua. They said he was a gifted Hawaiian healer who lived on Maui. They talked of some of the people he had healed, and they told me he wouldn't see just anyone... Read Full Article

Herbal Medicine in the Treatment of Cancer University of Hawaii at Manoa John A. Burns School of Medicine
The war on cancer that began in 1970 is still far from over. Despite 30 billion dollars spent on research and treatment, the mortality rate for cancer is 6% higher in 1997 than it was in 1970 (Bailar III and Gornik, 1997). This has frustrated both patients and physicians, and has led some patients to actively seek out non-Western healing practices. One of the most popular is herbal medicine. In 1996 US herbs sales were 12 billion dollars with 63% of the population expecting to make herbs a part of their daily regimen within 5 years (Landers, 1996). The popularity of the use of herbs to treat cancer poses a unique difficulty to health care professionals. Terminal cancer patients who have lost all hope with modern medicine are easy prey to scam artists who will offer dangerous products at high prices with promises of a cure. At the same time there may also be legitimate herbalist who offer products with great benefit to the cancer patient... Read Full Article

Application of La'au Lapa'au University of Hawaii at Manoa John A. Burns School of Medicine
I enjoyed learning about la'au lapa'au. Before starting this project, I was aware that Hawaiians used plants for medicinal purposes, but I did not know of any specific plants. After "talking story" with Uncle Henry Rapoza and researching about these plants, I have a great respect for our Hawaiian plants and for the people who hold the knowledge of these medicinal herbs. In talking with Uncle Henry, I learned about traditional la'au lapa'au. For instance, the practice of lapa'au was individualized. When a person needed medicine, the kahuna lapa'au would pray and chant for the affected person. While chanting, the kahuna would "sense" which plants had the most mana. Before picking the plant, the kahuna would ask for permission to pick the plant and would state whom the plant was for. In this way, all of the mana from the plant could be channeled for the affected person... Read Full Article