Talk:Mangosteen

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Contents

[edit] Endorsement

It is encyclopedic and imporant to know knowledge about praise and endorsements. You are wrong to have reverted it Unban keep it real

[edit] Taste

What does it taste like? An encyclopedia article about a fruit should probably mention something about the taste. Besides, I'm curious. =) --BeSherman 13:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I added a description of the taste. La Gringa 06:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Do your research

Before you start badmouthing this fruit, take a quick look on PubMed.gov. You will find that there is a substantial amount of legitimate research articles from peer-reviewed journals about this fruit. I am not commenting on any companies that sell any mangosteen products, I am just stating that there is real research out there that does indeed demonstrate that the mangosteen has health benefits. There is more compelling evidence for this fruit than for some pharmaceuticals. Also, you should note that the journal articles are in no way tied to any of the companies, and quite a few of them were written before any mangosteen supplement was ever brought to market. I am all for removing marketing and propoganda from Wikipedia, but you cannot let your personal biases against companies cloud your judgement about what the scientific community has put forth in their research. I am not standing up for marketing or any business/company, nor am I confirming what anyone has written about mangosteen's health benefits, but I am standing up for legitimate science. I am also not saying that all research articles are fact or flawless; however, you will find that the xanthones in the Garcinia mangostana are COX-inhibitors as well as histamine and serotonin inhibitors. You will also find that the xanthones have shown anti-cancer/anti-tumor properities in vitro, as well as being antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral. Take a look for yourself, and you will find these journal articles. ARA 02:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


They once thought radium was good for you too. I'm not saying its anywhere near as harmful as that was but it just goes to show being snake oil salesmen is a profession that stands the test of time. CiXeL

[edit] Mangosteen aril "fruit" nutrition and antioxidant qualities are poor

If one looks carefully at the structure of mangosteen's fruit that is preferred for human consumption, it's clear immediately that the white flesh -- botanically, an aril seed covering -- is without pigmentation (read that as absent of antioxidants which are phenols with defensive roles usually on the outside of a fruit or vegetable).

Xango juice is made (apparently, as the method is proprietary) in a 3 step process. 1) juice is squeezed from the edible aril as a base for Xango; 2) juices of several other fruits are added; 3) xanthones from the inedible purple pericarp are added for color and antioxidant value.

This recent paper takes a factual look at mangosteen aril nutrient quality (poor, nearly absent), aril antioxidant value (must be nearly zero, as the plant does not need antioxidant protection deep inside the overall fruit structure, so the flesh is without pigmentation), and research underway on xanthones (an adolescent research field by comparison to other antioxidant phytochemicals).

http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=17613&zoneid=43

Conclusion: there isn't much to get excited about concerning Xango. A consumer would get more nutrition and probably equal antioxidant value drinking tomato, grape or cranberry juice at prices of what?, $2-3 per liter? whereas Xango costs about 10 times more? --Paul144 16:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Much of this page sounds like "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" – hardly encyclopedical. Mangosteen is currently being marketed. I'm trying to tone down the advertizing language and I'm removing dubious statements taken from the referenced links, where they appear with no source other than some MD's opinion.

I will also remove the claims about "many times the antioxidant capacity of popular vitamins" which I could not back up in gov or edu sites: [1], [2]. — Sebastian (talk) 06:41, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

I would agree with that. there is alot of hype surrounding the mangosteen due to xango. the mangosteen rind is mostly tannins. I'd like say thank you for all you wikipedians out there working hard to remove the Xango spam that routinely shows up on this article. CiXeL

If that is the case then why are so many people claiming to benefit from incorporating mangosteen juice into their daily health routine? There has to be some benefit to the fruit. Doesn't there?

I added in the info on the frozen version and the Oahu irradiation facility.



I simply CANNOT wait to see mangosteen juice die off like the noni juice fad so the snake oil salesmen stop. CiXeL

The USDA has published a standard test of antioxidant value called ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) that is used to rate antioxidant quality of foodstuffs, nutritional supplements and nutritional minerals (like Selenium.) Even One-A-Day and Centrum vitamins now state that they have antioxidant value.

We hear about tomatoes having lycopene, which is a food antioxidant. Good for heart health, and all that. Can I write an article about ORAC comparisons of various fruit and vegetable foodstuffs? Most red and dark berry juices have specified ORAC values (red grape wine, pomegranate juice, noni juice, mangosteen juice, cherry juice) all are high ORAC value foodstuffs.

Reference on high ORAC foodstuffs and the healthy benefits, from United States Department of Agriculture. From the article: Foods that score high in an antioxidant assay called ORAC may protect cells and their components from damage by oxygen radicals, according to studies of animals and human blood. ORAC measures the total antioxidant power of foods and other chemical substances. Early findings suggest that eating plenty of high-ORAC fruits and vegetables—such as spinach and blueberries—may help slow the processes associated with aging in both body and brain.

[edit] Whole fruit

I recently purchased some of these as whole fruit in NZ. Given NZ's extremely stringent phytosanitary standards which would probably be more stringent then those in the US in general, I suspect the mention of them being illegal to import in the US may be untrue. I don't know where these originated from (perhaps Australia) or how they were treated (perhaps irradiated although irradiated mangos that I've bought have been clearly labelled) however I'm guessing they can be imported (whether they are or not I don't know). They were extremely expensive of course... Nil Einne 06:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

They came from australia probably around innisfail/cairns. (I have a friend who is trying to start a mangosteen and durian plantation there). Not sure if theyre irradiated. They certainly are illegal to import into the US if they are not irradiated due to fruit fly larvae that can sit under the crown on the fruit. Thailand will be exporting the first irradiated ones to california in the coming months. CiXeL

[edit] Links

The question was asked in a check-in comment why we're keeping the montosogardens.com and proscitech.com.au links if the xango one is inappropriate. Personally, I have no problem with the montosogardens.com ("Montoso Gardens is a... botanical garden, tropical flower and fruit farm, and nursery with over 600 species of exotic tropical flowers, fruits, nuts, spices, and palms. ") & proscitech.com.au ("Serving Light, Electron Microscopy, general Science & Technology Laboratories in Australasia") links. Both of the pages linked to are actually pages for the mangosteen within a larger site, and not sites dedicated to selling mangosteen fruit juice via multi-level marketing ("The first company to harness the real power of the exotic Garcinia mangostana, XanGo not only leads the mangosteen-based dietary supplement market—we created it."). I feel WP:EL supports my interpretation, but I'm willing to discuss it here. -- Steven Fisher 17:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely correct. Information on websites from gardens, museums and the like is routinely used - the idea being that they're not really pushing a product in the manner of a true commercial site. The other link at proscitech goes to an isolated portion of the site that details information from a book. If we called that a commercial site, everything from webhosts that prefix their domain name would be out, and that would be silly. Shell babelfish 21:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, I got the impression that the only criteria that user was using for "commercial" was whether there was a .com in the domain name. I really can't see any other way that the XanGo site is related to the other two. -- Steven Fisher 21:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] XanGo link?

Would a link to the XanGo article be appropriate for the See Also section? Why or why not? I'm a bit torn on the subject -- although it promotes XanGo a bit, it also points out additional information about XanGo's marketing campaigns. -- Steven Fisher 16:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been monitoring the XanGo article and I also am torn. I don't want to promote those *unprintables*, but on the other hand, it would be good for potential marks to know it's an MLM scheme. Ask at the Village Pump? Zora 03:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Xango LLC Warned by the FDA About Marketing Practices and False Health Claims, Sept 2006

The FDA's take on Xango and any supposed dietary health product marketed with such exhorbitant anti-disease claims that accompany Xango juice is to assess whether the food or beverage qualifies as a "drug".

In other words, if a fruit has sufficient scientific proof that it prevents or cures diseases as Xango marketing material claims, then it must be a drug requiring the long series of expensive research including clinical trials required of any company developing a new drug from biotechnology.

See this warning letter issued to Xango in Sept. 2006 and apparently still under evaluation as there appears to be no further news to date in February 2007.

http://www.fda.gov/foi/warning_letters/g6024d.htm

Xango LLC provides its position as of October 2006

http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/hotnews/6ah28484.html

This information needs to be written into the Article. The public coming to Wikipedia for facts needs to know issues surrounding the description given here. If we hold mangosteen (that is, any fruit and its juice products) to the stringent standards of the FDA, then the public can be assured whether health claims are valid.

I will give this discussion area a few days for debate before providing an update to the Article, unless someone else would like to take it on. --Paul144 16:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what does it taste like?

what does it taste like? are both the tree and the fruit called mangosteens? -Ravedave 02:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It has the texture similar to soft canned peach, but the flavor is sweet-tart, kinda like tangerine. cecikierk

[edit] Rind is hard or soft?

Near the top of the article it says that the rind is hard. Near the bottom, it says that the rind is soft. I also question the statement that the fruit is usually torn apart rather than cut. That may be true in the field, but at a table, I'm sure it would be served cut due to the staining juices. Additionally the fruit inside is very delicate and can be damaged easily by any pressure on the rind. The pictures in the article, and every picture I've seen of the fruit, show it cut, not torn apart. La Gringa 08:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

re: rind. we have a mangosteen tree at home and the rind is hard and soft. Hard on the outside and soft on the inside. It is better to open them by hand rather than by cutting them bec the pressure that your hand exerts just breaks up the outer hard rind really easily then you can just pull the halves apart. Besides, if you use a knife, it might slip and cut you bec. of the hard outer rind. The fruit is not that delicate that it would get damaged by opening the fruit by hand. karen

[edit] Their was/is (?) a picture of a Penis on this site which in no ....

way relates to the Garcinia Mangostana. Even if the name of Mango does signify the Sperm that relates to the reproductive process the fruit undergoes, a Homosapien Penis has nothing to do with this! No empirical evidence has been found linking the Male Genitalia with a Mangosteen. I am a scientist and I understand these things.

[edit] Can mangosteen's skin be used/made as an INK?

i need to know for our further experiment..

The mangosteen pericarp is a dense purple, color given by pigments called phenolics (also called phenols), see the picture gallery[3], with a good discussion there about many aspects of this fruit. As with most plants having deep colors, natural plant pigments have been used for centuries as dyes for fabrics, cosmetics and even the food industry. For example, apparently over several decades until recently, the USDA used juice from black raspberries as a stamp ink for labeling fresh cuts of meat. --Paul144 01:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XanGo

I have removed the majority of the text in the xango section of the article. The first paragraph read like an advertisement for Xango, and the rest of it was just copied and pasted from the xango article. Considering that it really dealt with the FDA/XanGo case, i dont think it was relevant for the article on the fruit. I've left the following text in: Several commercial mangosteen juices are on the public market, primarily in the United States and Canada. One well known juice company is XanGo. I think that will suffice. THE KING 00:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of name

What is the etymology of the name and is the name related to "mango"? Badagnani 08:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears that John Ellis, a 1775 English explorer of the South Pacific islands, first heard the native words for the fruit, "mangoustay" or "mangostan", then anglicized these terms. See a good historical description at the primary mangosteen website, http://mangosteen.com/historyandfolklore.htm
Of interest is that the Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, father of botanical nomenclature (1707-1778), received samples and information about this newly discovered plant from Frenchman, Laurent Garcin, when he was cataloguing his famous taxonomic system, still used scientifically for all plants today. Hence the binomial name for mangosteen -- Garcinia mangostana.
The mango is from an entirely different botanical family, Anacardiaceae, genus Mangifera. The name "mango" comes from the Tamil language "mangai" which was followed in Malayalam language as manga and popularized by the Portuguese after their exploration of the Asian mainland, hence the word 'manga' in Portuguese. --Paul144 13:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bolthouse Farms product

User:Paul144: In general, I agree that it's not encyclopedic to mention specific commercial products, but in this case I had two reasons for including the reference to Bolthouse Farms. 1. The page had very few things linking to it. 2. Mangosteen is, to the best of my knowledge, unavailable in the US in any other fresh form. If you think that's inadequate reasoning, feel free to revert again, but I'm going to restore my edit. --Keflavich 20:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Keflavich -- 1. internal links can be done by editing other related articles and using the internal link to mangosteen. A commercial brand is not the way to take care of this. 2. using a notable brand like Bolthouse Farms doesn't justify the commercial link. Readers may take it as endorsement which an encyclopedia does not make. If allowed, other brands would argue theirs is better. There are numerous mangosteen juice products -- usually adulterated with other fruit juices, but still branded as mangosteen -- making this an endless game of upmanship if allowed once. --Paul144 21:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Can you name any other fresh mangosteen-included juices? This is the only one I've seen, but I'll admit that my experience is limited. Perhaps more are available in Asian grocery stores? This was the first mangosteen product I'd ever seen in stores, but if there are others, I'd like to know about them. --Keflavich 21:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"Fresh" is a matter of definition and probably is irrelevant anyway since no processed juice -- which includes pasteurization -- remains "fresh". There are many mangosteen juice products in the US retail and direct-sales markets. To name a few:

  • XanGo has the largest revenues projected at more than $300 million for 2006 sales
  • Genesis Today markets Mangosteen100[4]
  • Pure Fruit Technologies markets MangoXan[5]

--Paul144 00:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose you're right on the term fresh. Thanks for the links, I was unaware of these products. --Keflavich 16:31, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WorldwideWarning.net -- Mangosteen Juice Scams

Captivating reading[6]. The site purports to expose scams and just tell the truth, so is worthy for each person to read and make one's own judgment. --Paul144 15:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is relevant here. The writer tries to trash network marketing as opposed to anything about XanGo, let alone the mangosteen fruit itself. It is just a matter of who shows it to them. There are going to be some fanatics when promoting anything, whether it be a company, a party, or a politician or political ideology. Now if XanGo itself made false claims, it obviously should be notable (they haven't, it was the 3rd party company promoting them), but if it is someone who just makes ridiculous claims about it then it has nothing to do with the company itself, but rather that individual's credibility. Arnabdas 19:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

As a discussion page is fair game for anything related to the article topic, I think this background is relevant and worthy of making others with an interest in mangosteen aware of critical writing about the fruit elsewhere on the web.

Arnabas said: "Now if XanGo itself made false claims, it obviously should be notable (they haven't, it was the 3rd party company promoting them)"

FYI this link[7] -- quoting the FDA letter:

  1. Labeling used by distributors of your product promotes your product for use in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. Products intended for such uses are drugs under section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) [21 U.S.C. 321(g)(1)(B)).
  2. FDA obtained brochures promoting the health benefits of mangosteens and mangosteen juice through contact information...
  3. "Labeling" is defined in section 201(m) the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(m)] as "all labels and other written, printed or graphic matter upon any article . . . or accompanying such article." The brochures we received as a prospective distributor of your product meet the definition of "labeling" in section 201(m) of the Act.
  4. These claims cause your product to be a drug, as defined in Section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1)(B)] . Because this product is not generally recognized as safe and effective when used as labeled, it is also a new drug as defined in Section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(p)]. New drugs may not be legally marketed in the United States without prior approval from FDA

--Paul144 21:45, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

While everything you write is true, we didn't get to address my underlying point. Any organization cannot control the mouths of people in the organization, especially big organizations. A Ford employee can make some claim that Ford cars have teleporters that transport you and the car anywhere on Earth. Now if Ford itself did that, then that would be on the company. If some independent salesperson did that and the organization did nothing to correct the statement, then you are absolutely right it is on the organization. XanGo corrected itself...even to the point where it forbids brochures from even having the company name on it from my understanding. If XanGo did nothing, your argument is justified, but they did respond in a responsible manner, so that should be brought to attention.
Still, that is neither here nor there with regards to this page. The FDA warning should be noted on the XanGo page (which it is) as should the response by XanGo itself (that is too I think). Readers can decide for themselves whether the explanation is good enough for them to either try that product or not. Arnabdas 21:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair comments, Arnabdas. I felt it was important to reply to you because we are here on the Mangosteen page, not the one for XanGo.

My original comment was not intended to isolate one manufacturer, but rather to point out that the mangosteen juice product category seems vulnerable to exaggeration about the importance of mangosteen as a nutrient source (low) and as an antioxidant source (also low in the fruit itself). Comments about exocarp xanthones usually are made in the context of human health benefits, and these are indeed frank fabrications since this is such an undeveloped science. --Paul144 00:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I understand your intentions. Still, if your intention was to show that sometimes the effects of the fruit gets exaggerated I still don't understand the notability of it. Anything can be exaggerated, not just mangosteen itself. This page should have any studies on the fruit itself and the sources arguing both the low nutrient and anti-oxidant sources as well as those who say the opposite. Arnabdas 18:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)