Medicinal Monday - Essiac Tea...Myth or...

As a nation of primarily coffee drinkers, some of us only drink tea when we are not feeling well. In today's beverage market, tea is making a come back with all types of teas, green, black, semi-fermented and herbal blends flooding the market. Native American communities have enjoyed tea for centuries medicinally and for pure enjoyment. Essiac Tea is said to have had originated from a traditional Ojibwa herbal formula. Whatever the case may be, this tea has a rich, interesting, and controversial history.

About Essiac Tea
The Essiac tea recipe is said to have been developed by an Ojibwa Medicine Man and given to the famous Canadian cancer nurse, Rene Caisse in 1922. She found that the wife of a minor was cured of a "serious illness" after taking an old Ojibwa recipe given to her by a medicine man.  

Nurse Caisse experimented with this recipe and saw that it helped to promote wellness in her patients. Many of her patients reported feeling better and that this tea made their condition more liveable. Nurse Caisse gave the formula the name essiac, which is her name spelled backward.  It is used today using the exact ratio of prescribed herbs by the Ojibwa Medicine Man. Nurse Caisse died in 1978 at the age of 90.

Sheep Sorrel

Medicinal Benefits
The original four-herb formula contains burdock root, slippery elm inner bark, turkey rhubarb, and sheep sorrel leaf stem, flower, seeds, and roots. Wild sheep Sorrel is particularly difficult to harvest in quantities and great care is taken not to overharvest this delicate and important plant. Sheep Sorrel is rich in Vitamin A, B complex, C, D, K, and E. Minerals include significant levels of calcium, iron, magnesium, silicon, sulphur, zinc, manganese, iodine, and copper. It is also rich in chlorophyll which increases the oxygen content in the blood. 

Burdock Root

Burdock Root is best known for its beneficial effects on the skin - it increases circulation and helps to detoxify it. Slippery Elm Bark has a lubricating property that helps to protect membrane linings and joints and, Turkey Rhubarb Root has impressive detoxifying properties especially for the liver.

Turkey Rhubarb

Did You Know

Proponents of Essiac Tea claim it has anti-cancer properties, and that it can stimulate immunity.

Essiac has also been used to treat diabetes, AIDS, and gastrointestinal diseases.

People that are not battling an illness drink the tea to promote general health. They might also drink it as a detoxifying elixir.

According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, there isn't any controlled data available from human studies to suggest that Essiac is an effective treatment for patients with cancer. A Canadian study was halted due to poor methodology.

Non-human studies have found evidence that Essiac both slowed and promoted different kinds of cancer.

A 2007 study found Essiac contains more antioxidant properties than red wine or green tea.

The origins of the recipe are debated because several of the herbs are not indigenous to North America and had not yet made it here via trade routes when Cassie first introduced the tea.

In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited Essiac tea on a list of herbal cures that does not "cure" cancer.