The Benefits of Mastic
Mastic Is More Than An Antibacterial
Study related to the Berbers of North Africa shows that
mastic is an antiviral as well
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
- George Santayana
By Will Block
e've all heard that famous saying many times and nodded
our heads sagely. If only we actually heeded the timeless advice it embodies,
however, the world would surely be a better place. Pick up any daily newspaper,
look at the headlines, and ask yourself if the Santayana principle has been at
work yet again. Scary, isn't it? George Santayana, by the way, was a
distinguished American philosopher and a very smart man (that's redundant.)
But here's the thing: as smart as Santayana was, he
apparently overlooked the other side of the historical coin. For it could also
be said, at least in one context, that those who have forgotten the past may be
fortunate enough to relive it. That is what is happening in the world of modern
medicine, which is continually rediscovering and reinventing many of the
long-forgotten secrets of ancient folkloric medicine - to the inestimable
advantage of us all.
With gathering momentum, modern scientists are using the
powerful techniques of organic chemistry, molecular biology, pharmacology, and
other sciences to confirm and explain and exploit the knowledge that legions of
our distant ancestors acquired painstakingly over many centuries through keen
observations and endless trial and error. Many of the errors, of course,
resulted in sickness or death, and it's a safe bet that the survivors took
careful note not to repeat those trials.
Mastic Is Rediscovered
One of the recently rediscovered secrets of our forebears
is that of mastic, a resinous gum with an astonishing medicinal property that is
particularly useful in the modern world: it can kill the bacterium that causes
most peptic ulcers. Mastic gum is exuded by the bark of the mastic tree,
Pistacia lentiscus, which grows primarily on the Greek island of Chios
Actually, the people of
(pronounced key´ose) and throughout the Mediterranean region have been using
mastic as a medicine for gastrointestinal ailments for several thousand years,
so it has never really been a secret over there. Somehow, though, the rest of
the world managed to overlook the virtues of mastic ever since the Middle Ages.
It was not until the early 1980s that Arab researchers in the Middle East
(including Iraq) began looking at mastic through the prism of modern science and
reporting what they saw. Before we get to that, however, let's backtrack a few
millennia and find out how all this got started.
Dioscorides Was Right About Mastic
The origins of the use of mastic are lost in the mists of
time, but our formal knowledge of this wondrous plant begins with its
description in the classic botanical/pharmacological treatise De Materia Medica
("About Medical Substances"), written in the first century by the Greek
physician and botanist Dioscorides (see the sidebar on this remarkable man). He
observed that mastic was an effective agent for treating various forms of
internal bleeding, a fact that had apparently already been known for a long
He also said that mastic "is diuretical, makes unstable
teeth firm when washed with it, and its green sprigs are effective in cleaning
teeth. The resin alone, when drunk, is good for bleeding exportations, old
coughs, the stomach (but it causes belching), stimulating hair growth on
eyebrows, and is good in toothpaste because it cleans, makes white, strengthens,
and gives good breath." (If he were alive today, he could get a job writing
One or two or those claims may be questionable (the bit
about eyebrow hair is somewhat of an eyebrow-raiser), but most are on the mark.
We now know - again, after two millennia - that mastic is good for internal
bleeding caused by ulcers, and it's good for oral hygiene as well.
Dioscorides collecting a botanical specimen for his studies.
Mastic Kills H. pylori
What the Arab researchers demonstrated two decades ago was
scientific evidence of the effectiveness of mastic in treating duodenal ulcers.
Subsequently working in England with British colleagues, they found that mastic
shows antibacterial activity against a number of different species of bacteria,
most notably Helicobacter pylori. This nasty and extraordinarily hardy bacterium
is the primary causative agent for most gastric (stomach) and duodenal ulcers,
which are collectively known as peptic ulcers.
The Legacy of Dioscorides
If there is a patron saint of herbal medicine, it is
Pedanios Dioscorides, a Turkish-born Greek who served as a surgeon in the Roman
army under the dreadful emperor Nero. Born around 20 A.D. (or maybe around 40
A.D. - no one is sure) in Anazarbus, near Tarsus, in what is now Turkey,
Dioscorides became a physician and a botanist (which were not all that different
in those days, as most doctors were basically herbalists). He developed a
passionate interest in the use of plants as a source of drugs. This led him
eventually (around 70 A.D.) to write one of the great classics of medical
literature, De Materia Medica.
Dioscorides (pronounced die-os-kor´ih-deez) was a keen and
objective observer of the natural world. The details of his botanical and
pharmacological writings were highly accurate and free of superstition - he was
a scientist at heart.
De Materia Medica, a magisterial work in five volumes, was
the world's first really systematic pharmacopoeia. It contained detailed
descriptions of about 600 plants that Dioscorides studied on his extensive
travels throughout the Mediterranean world, in both Europe and Africa, and it
discussed about 1000 medications derived from these plants. It eclipsed every
other work of its kind and remained the final authority in botany and
pharmacology for about 15 centuries.
Among countless other astute observations, Dioscorides
noted in De Materia Medica that garlic "cleans the arteries." He was
correct - we now know that certain chemical compounds in garlic are indeed
effective in reducing the arterial plaque that is the hallmark of
atherosclerosis, and it is used with chelating agents such as EDTA in
formulations designed to do just that.
Dioscorides, ever alert to anything unusual, also reported
the intriguing observation that mercury sometimes condensed on the underside of
the lid of the vessel containing it. This was the first known mention of the
principle of distillation, which would become immensely important in chemistry
many centuries later.
No one knows when Dioscorides died, but it was probably
around 90 A.D. It would be fascinating to know to what extent, if any, he may
have prolonged his own life through the judicious use of some of the herbal
products he studied and described with such great mastery.
Researchers in Australia made that startling discovery
about the true cause of ulcers in the early 1980s, at about the same time that
mastic was being rediscovered by the Arab scientists in the Middle East. The
Arab and British researchers subsequently (in the late 1990s) found that mastic
kills H. pylori. By then it was known that H. pylori typically infects the
stomach and intestines, but it is also commonly found in the mouth (which is,
after all, part of the gastrointestinal tract), because there's no way to
prevent the bacteria from migrating up and down the esophagus.
Mastic Keeps Stomachs Healthy
H. pylori is found not just in a few stomachs and mouths,
but in billions of them. Public health experts estimate that about half the
world's population is infected with H. pylori. In most people, most of the
time, the presence of these bacteria does not seem to cause much trouble - which
is fortunate, considering those huge numbers.
Who Are Those Berbers?
The Berbers are aboriginal Caucasoid peoples of North
Africa whose culture is at least 4400 years old. They now form a large part of
the populations of Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. Although some Berbers, notably
the fabled Tuareg, are nomads, most live on small farms and in tribal villages.
Like almost all indigenous peoples of the world, they cultivate a variety of
plants, not just for food and construction materials, but also for the herbal
medicines that can be extracted from many of them.
The Berbers are primarily Sunni Muslims and have a long,
bloody history of conquest and liberation. In the 1960s they helped drive the
French from Algeria.
But the bacteria can, at any time, become active enough to
cause or exacerbate a number of gastrointestinal ailments, notably gastritis, a
chronic inflammation of the stomach. In the worst-case scenario, it causes
peptic ulcers. Actually, an even worse scenario than that is stomach cancer.
It's not believed to be caused by H. pylori, but it is more likely to occur in
people with gastritis or other chronic gastrointestinal disorders than in those
whose stomachs are healthy. Thus, by eradicating H. pylori from the stomach and
keeping it healthy, mastic can indirectly help prevent stomach cancer.
Mastic Keeps Mouths Healthy Too
In the mouth, using oral mastic products such as mouthwash,
toothpaste, and chewing gum can help prevent tooth decay and diseases such as
periodontitis and gingivitis by reducing the levels of oral bacteria
(eliminating all bacteria from the mouth is impossible). And killing H. pylori
bacteria that find their way into the mouth helps prevent infection of the
stomach - or reinfection, if eradication of the bacteria from that organ had
previously been achieved. Because H. pylori is communicable through intimate
contact, such as kissing, it can fairly easily be transmitted from parents to
their children, and vice versa.
This One Is Hard to Believe, but True
Are you ready for a real surprise? Recent research (in
Greece, appropriately enough) has shown that H. pylori infection is related to
the incidence of glaucoma and that eradicating the infection reduces the risk of
developing this terrible disease. Stomach and eye? What's the connection?
Nobody knows - it's a mystery. Stay tuned.
And Now for Something Completely Different
Mastic's beneficial effects against H. pylori are by now
well established, and we have written about them numerous times (with abundant
literature citations) in this magazine.* The benefits are clearly related to
mastic's antibacterial action. Now, however, we have learned about another
potential benefit of mastic - related, surprisingly, to an antiviral action.
Bacteria and viruses are entirely different categories of microorganisms, and
most agents that are effective against one category are not effective against
the other, so this dual action of mastic would likely not have been predicted.
Berbers Are Well Versed in Herbal Medicine
A team of ethnobotanists and pathologists from Canada and
Morocco have collaborated on the first systematic study of the antiviral
activities reported on 75 endemic and Berber and Arab species of Moroccan
medicinal plants that have been used by the Berbers in their traditional
medicine. (In case you don't know any Berbers and are hazy on exactly who
they are, see the sidebar on this subject). The researchers tested extracts of
these plants in the laboratory on three pathogenic viruses of particular
interest to them: herpes simplex, poliovirus, and Sindbis.*
The plants - including Pistacia lentiscus, mastic - were
selected from among about 600 known medicinal plants in Morocco. They were
chosen specifically because of their reported uses in treating infectious
diseases such as colds, flu, dysentery, and various poxes and fevers, as well as
wounds, rashes, diarrhea, and other ailments.
Mastic Has Antiviral Activity Against Herpes Simplex
Cut to the chase: 45 of the plants were found to have
antiviral activity. Of those 45, nine showed a strong correlation between this
activity and the plant's traditional use by the Berbers. And one of those nine
was mastic, which the Berbers have long used for stomachache and ulcers.
The researchers found that mastic had antiviral activity
against herpes simplex, which causes skin infections characterized by blisters
that usually appear around the lips (cold sores) or on the genitals. The initial
infection probably occurs during infancy or childhood, and it subsequently
becomes dormant. The reappearance of blisters later in life may be triggered by
factors such as fever, exposure to sunlight, menstruation, or pregnancy.
Four Mastic Recipes from Greece
The Greeks use mastic not just as medicine, but also as a
food preservative, owing to its antibacterial properties. In addition, they use
it as a food flavoring and as a beverage - and even as chewing gum.
The following four recipes using mastic powder for
flavoring are from Stefanos Kovas, a chef at the Chandris Hotel on the island of
Chios, where he teaches at the Chios School for Chefs. The recipes (translated
from Greek) have been adapted for American kitchens.
Where the recipes call for a drop of mastic powder (i.e.,
the amount obtained by grinding up one average - size "drop," or "tear,"
of mastic gum), you may use mastic powder according to your own taste.
Roast Chicken with Mastic Sauce
Chicken (2 1/2-3 lbs)
2 tbsp Butter
Seasonings of choice
1 Carrot, sliced
1 Potato, cut in chunks
1 Onion, sliced
3 Celery stalks, cut in chunks
1 Leek (white and light green parts only), chopped
1/2 cup Dry
1 cup Water
2 tbsp Cornstarch
(or arrowroot or similar thickener)
3 drops Mastic powder
1 can Fruit cocktail (drained) - optional
After washing chicken, butter it and sprinkle with
seasonings. Bake chicken in 350ºF oven for 1 1/2 hours or until done, and
remove from baking pan. Add vegetables to baking pan and brown them. Add wine
and cook until it evaporates, then add water. Let simmer for 20 minutes, then
put through strainer. Thicken liquid with cornstarch, then add mastic powder and
fruit cocktail (or omit the latter if it does not appeal to you). Cut chicken in
slices and place in large serving dish. Add sauce. Serve with mashed potatoes.
Grilled Veal Steak with Mastic Sauce
2 lbs Veal round steak
1 cup Beef
1/2 cup Sweet
2 tbsp Vinegar
Salt to taste
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp Sugar
1 cup Mushrooms,
2 drops Mastic powder
Cut veal steak into round pieces and pound lightly. Make
marinade from beef broth, wine, and vinegar, and marinate steaks for 1/2
hour. Remove steaks from marinade (save marinade) and sprinkle with salt. Put
steaks on grill. Stir lemon juice and sugar into frying pan and let brown. Add
marinade. Sauté mushrooms in marinade, and add mastic powder. Place steaks in
large dish, add sauce, and serve with opened baked potatoes garnished with
1 1/2-2 cups Unbleached fine flour
1-2 tsp Salt
2 drops Mastic powder
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 packet Yeast, dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water (about 115º)
Tomato sauce, cheese, and other pizza toppings
Mix 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and mastic powder in a
bowl. Make a hollow in the mixture and add olive oil and yeast. Mix these
ingredients, and add more flour as needed, but only enough to make a smooth,
elastic dough - not stiff. Allow dough to rest for 15 minutes, covered with
dishtowel. Roll out dough to fit pizza pan. Before spreading dough, grease pan
with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with cornmeal. Make pizza of your choice
(topping it with tomato sauce, cheese, mushrooms, olives, peppers, ham, bacon,
sausage, pepperoni, etc.). Bake in 450ºF oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is
bubbling and brown.
Mastic Bread (for Weddings)
2 packets Yeast, dissolved in 1 1/2 cups warm water (about 115º)
1 tbsp Vegetable
1 tsp Sugar
1 tbsp Salt
2 drops Mastic powder
4 cups Unbleached flour
1 Egg, beaten
Mix yeast, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and mastic powder in
a bowl. Add flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Make sure that flour is fully
incorporated into yeast mixture, adding enough until dough is soft and elastic.
Knead well and allow dough to rest for 1 hour, covered with dishtowel. Knead
again and shape into small, round bread rolls. Put them in large baking pans.
Let rise for 2 hours at room temperature. Before baking, brush dough with egg,
and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake in 350ºF oven for 45 minutes or until
OK, but what's wrong with this picture? It's that
stomachache and ulcers have nothing to do with the herpes simplex virus, as far
as we know. Thus the Berbers' use of mastic apparently has nothing to do with
its antiviral activity, but rather with its antibacterial activity - just as
other peoples of the Mediterranean have been using it for millennia.
Nonetheless, it's fascinating to learn that mastic has a hitherto unknown
dimension to its medicinal value - one that might be of practical use if further
investigations confirm it.
Fighting the Good Fight
From birth to death, we are all at the mercy, to one degree
or another, of the multitude of environmental hazards - including ubiquitous
bacteria such as H. pylori - that are a part of our world. What we can, and
must, do is fight back with every means at our disposal, such as mastic for
gastrointestinal health and oral health, and even eye health (and, perhaps, for
skin health too, as we now know). We should enjoy the fight, because it's a
good fight - and we're winning! Besides, as George Santayana also famously
said, "There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."
- Riddle JM. History as a tool in identifying "new" old drugs. In
Buslig B, Manthey J, eds. Flavonoids in Cell Function, pp 89-94. Kluwer/Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2002.
- Mouhajir F, Hudson JB, Rejdali M, Towers GHN. Multiple antiviral
activities of endemic medicinal plants used by Berber peoples of Morocco.
Pharmaceut Biol 2001;39(5):364-74.
Will Block is the publisher and editorial director of Life