Boswellia

Has anyone every heard of Boswellia?  I was in CVS reading a book about natural treatments for various diseases and obvioulsy went to the IBD section.  The first thing they noted was Boswellia which apparently is a natural anti inflamatory supplement.  A lot of the information that I have read stated that Boswellia was used for Chrons and UC. 

Has anyone ever used this and had positive results?

Boswellia is a genus of trees known for their fragrant resin which has many pharmacological uses particularly as anti-inflammatories. The Biblical incense frankincense was probably an extract from the resin of the tree, Boswellia sacra.

There are four main species of Boswellia which produce true frankincense and each type of resin is available in various grades. The grades depend on the time of harvesting, and the resin is hand sorted for quality. Anyone interested in frankincense would be well advised to first obtain a small sample of each type from a reputable dealer in order to ascertain the difference between each resin.

Medicinal uses:
Boswellia has long been used in Ayurvedic medicine. Recently, the boswellic acids that are a component of the resin it produces have shown some promise as a treatment for asthma and various inflammatory conditions (Gupta I, Gupta V, Parihar A, et al. Effects of Boswellia serrata gum resin in patients with bronchial asthma: results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled, 6-week clinical study. European Journal of Herbal Medicine 1998; 3:511-14.) In West Africa, the bark of Boswellia dalzielii is used to treat fever, rheumatism and gastrointestinal problems. Boswellia incense may even relieve depression.

Zippy,

When you are taking your meds, do you take the Boswellia with them or at a diffrent time?

Here is one more link on a dosage done by a study in 2001.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11488449
They gave people 900mg daily divided into 3 doses, this is regular Boswellia extract, not the more concentrated 5-Loxin NSI also sells. According to this medical article more people went into remission after 6 weeks than did using sulfasalazine. So who knows.

Shadam said...
That all seems interesting...thanks for the info.


Zippy, where do you buy your Boswellia pills and how many capsules is equivilent to 900mg?

I order from Vitacoast.com, If you get the regular NSI brand Boswellia each pill is about 300mg about 65% acids, so 3 per day is what I am going to do. They also have a new version of Boswellia called 5-Loxin which is what I started taking origionally. It seems to be a more concentrated form at two small caplets is only 150mg. Which one is better I don't know, I am going to alternate between the two types. I was taking 4 caps of 5-Loxin two times a day. Just try out what you think is best, I think you would have to take a lot to overdose on it, if it is even possible. I figure if it works or helps some, its worth a try anyways.

http://www.vitacost.com/

does this boswellia stuff have any drug interactions? I am on a bunch of other garbage as well including asocol (4/3 times daily), Predisone (25 mg/day) Coritizone (don't ask about the dosing!) Immuran (25 mg/day) Omeprozol (30 mg/day) Promethazine and Zophran and have had unpleasant surprises before