 Moringa has been called the miracle tree, but does it live up to the hype? Is it really more nutritious than other, more commonly available fruits and vegetables? I'll answer that question in this video, and in the next video we'll look at the effects specifically on blood sugars. Check out the research. Moringa is a plant commonly known as the miracle tree. Due to its purported healing powers across a spectrum of diseases, miracle isn't hyperbolic enough for you. On the internet it's also known as God's gift to man. Is Moringa a miracle or just a mirage? The enthusiasm for the health benefits of Moringa is in dire contrast with the scarcity of strong experimental and clinical evidence supporting the claims. Fortunately, the chasm is slowly being filled. There's been a surge in scientific publications on Moringa, and in the last 10 years the number of articles is closer to a thousand. But what got my attention was the presence of glucosinolates, compounds that boost our liver's detoxifying enzymes. I thought they were only found in cruciferous vegetables, like cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, and cauliflower, but no. It turns out they're also found in the Moringa family, with potency comparable to broccoli. That's exciting, but why not just eat broccoli rather than mail-ordering some exotic Moringa powder? Is there anything special about Moringa? It's been described as the most nutritious tree yet discovered. How much is that saying, though? I mean, who eats trees? Supposedly, Moringa contains higher amounts of nutrients than most conventional sources, 10 times the vitamin A of carrots, 12 times the vitamin C of oranges, 17 times more calcium the milk, 15 times more potassium, the bananas, 25 times more iron than spinach, and 9 times more protein than yogurt. First of all, even if all this were true, this is for 100 grams of Moringa leaf. That's like 14 tablespoons, almost a whole cup of leaf powder. Researchers have had trouble getting people to even eat 20 grams, and so anything more would likely result in an excessively unpleasant taste due to the bitterness of the leaves. And secondly, the nutritional claims in these papers are quote-unquote adapted from fugly, which evidently is just some lay publication. If you go to the USDA nutrient database, though, and enter a more doable dose, like the amount you might get in a smoothie, about one tablespoon, for instance, a serving of Moringa powder has as much vitamin A as a quarter of one baby carrot, and as much vitamin C as one one hundredth of an orange. So an orange has as much vitamin C as 100 debels bones of Moringa. A serving of Moringa powder only has the calcium of half a cup of milk, the potassium of not 15 bananas, but a quarter of one banana, the iron of a quarter cup of spinach, and the protein of a third of a container of yogurt. So yeah, it may be nutritious, but not off the charts, and certainly not what's commonly touted. So again, why not eat broccoli? It's got the A, C, calcium, potassium, iron, and protein of broccoli. Moringa does seem to have anti-cancer activity in a petri dish against cell lines of breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, and fibrosarcoma, while tending to leave normal cells relatively alone. But there hasn't been any clinical studies. Well, what's the point in finding out that Moringa enhances the sexual performance of stressed rats? What are you supposed to do with that? Studies like this one, though, started to make things a little interesting. Researchers were testing effects of a tablespoon Moringa leaf powder once a day for three months on antioxidant status, and saw a drop in oxidative stresses as one might expect from eating any healthy plant food. But they also saw a drop in fasting blood sugars from pre-diabetic levels over 100 to more normal levels. Now, that's interesting. Should we start recommending a daily tablespoon of Moringa powder to diabetics? Was it just a fluke? Moringa and blood sugar control, a review of the current evidence. Next.