Muira Puama

Potency Wood

Muira Puama is a small tree up to 5 meters in height and produces strong smelling flowers with a jasmine-like fragrance. It is native to the Brazilian Amazon and is commonly known as "potency wood".

Traditional Use and Benefits

Indigenous people have historically made use of muira puama by either chewing the bark or brewing a beverage from the bark, stems, or roots.

It has been used as an aphrodisiac and a sexual tonic that promotes virility and treats impotence. It is also a traditional herb for nervous exhaustion and depression.

South American Indians consider it a tonic for the nervous system, capable of promoting overall nerve function while preventing or treating nerve pain and disorders of the nervous system.

Muira puama is a traditional herb for indigestion and other gastrointestinal disorders. Women have used it to alleviate menstrual cramps and discomforts of menopause.

Amazonian tribes have also been known to use it to treat rheumatism, dysentery, paralysis, and beri-beri.

Christopher Allison states in "Powerful and Unusual Herbs from the Amazon and China":

"Muira Puama has been used to tonify the nervous system and for cases of mild exhaustion. It helps with gastro-intestinal and reproductive disorders.

It has antirhuematic properties and can be used for treating stress and trauma. Because of neurosexual stimulation it can enhance the libido.

It is considered to be useful in prevention of some types of baldness. It is also used for neuromuscular problems."

Active Components

Research discovered that the root and bark are rich in long-chain fatty acids, sterols, coumarin, essential oils and alkaloids named “muirapuamine.”

Chemically, it contains .05% muirapuamine, .4% fat, .5% alkaloids, .6% pholbaphene, .6% alpha-resinic acid, .7% beta resinic acid, .5% of a mixture of esters including behenic acid, lupeol and beta-sitosterol, as well as tannin, volatile oils and fatty acids.

Scientific Research

A paper presented by Dr. Jacques Waynberg at The First International Congress on Ethnopharmacology held in Strasbourg, France, in 1990, described a trial done at the Institute of Sexology in Paris on 262 men with erection problems and a lack of sexual desire.

Researchers found that over half of the subjects given a daily dose of 1 to 1.5 g of muira puama extract over two weeks experienced positive benefits to their sex lives.

An earlier scientific study was conducted by another French doctor, Dr. Rebourgeon. His research found the plant to be effective in gastrointestinal and circulatory asthenia as well as impotence.

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Disclaimer

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