Abundant in health benefits, chestnut leaves have long been incorporated in traditional folk remedies to treat skin infections. This has motivated ethnobotanist Cassandra Quave, from Emory University, to further examine the medicinal properties of chestnut leaves. The findings were astounding – although the botanical extract couldn’t kill Staphylococcus aureus, it in fact proved efficient in taking away its ability to produce toxins that in turn destroy the tissue.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause at least two million illnesses and 23,000 deaths in the US each year. Due to the fact that chestnut leaf extract inhibits Staphylococcus aureus virulence and pathogenesis without antibiotic resistance, this new finding is really promising for the treatment and prevention of infections caused by methicillin-resistant S. aureus, or MRSA.
In the many interviews she had with the locals and natural healers in Italy, Quave discovered that they use chestnut leaves to make tea which they use to wash their skin with when treating skin infections and inflammations.
Among the 94 chemicals that the research team extracted from the leaves, ursene and oleanene proved most efficient against staph infections.
A single dose of only 50 micrograms chestnut leaf extract removed MRSA skin lesions in lab mice, prevented tissue and red blood cell damage. What’s even more important is that the extract stays active even after two weeks of repeated microbial exposure. Furthermore, tests on human skin cells in laboratory conditions showed that the extract doesn’t have negative impact on the skin cells or the normal skin micro-flora.
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This short video can demonstrate how effective this great folk remedy is!
In case you want to learn how to prepare herbal tinctures yourself, this video from MountainRoseHerbs can help you.
Source: ExpandYourConsciousness.com
