Cissus Quadrangularis has had a lot of press lately in USPLabs' product Cissus RX - i'm actually going to be testing it from tomorrow, so I decided to check out the clinicals on it. Here's the results:
Quote:
Protective effect of Cissus quadrangularis on neutrophil mediated tissue injury induced by aspirin in rats.
Jainu M, Mohan KV, Devi CS.
Department of Biochemistry, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai 600025, India.
Cissus quadrangularis (family: Vitaceae) is well known for the treatment of gastric disorders in traditional medicine, owing to its rich source of carotenoids, triterpenoids and ascorbic acid, and has received considerable attention regarding its role in human nutrition. In the search of new potential antiulcer agents, the present study evaluated the ethanol extract of Cissus quadrangularis (CQE) against the gastric toxicity induced by aspirin in rats. The optimum protective dose of 500mg/kg of extract was selected by the pretreatment of gastric ulcers with different doses of CQE (250, 500 and 750mg/kg) for 7 days which showed ulcer protection by 40, 71.2 and 72.6%, respectively, as compared to ranitidine (RTD) (30mg/kg) by 71.9% in the aspirin model. In addition, results have shown that administration of aspirin increases lipid peroxidation status, xanthine oxidase (XO), myeloperoxidase and decrease in selenium-glutathione peroxidase activities in the gastric mucosa, resulting in mucosal damage at both cellular and subcellular level. Pretreatment with CQE ameliorated the observed effect significantly in the gastric mucosa of ulcerated rats. These findings suggest that the gastroprotective activity of CQE could be mediated possibly through its antioxidant effect as well as by the attenuation of the oxidative mechanism and neutrophil infiltration.
PMID: 16338111 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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Not hightly relevant to specific injuries, however this suggests that Cissus shows a potent antioxidant effect, and may be helpful for those with a history of GI problems.
Quote:
Antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of Cissus quadrangularis L.
Chidambara Murthy KN, Vanitha A, Mahadeva Swamy M, Ravishankar GA.
Cell Biotechnology Department, Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore 570 013, India.
Extracts of Cissus quadrangularis L. were tested for antioxidant activity by beta-carotene linoleic acid model and also by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl model. The ethyl acetate fraction of both fresh and dry stem extracts at a concentration of 100 ppm showed 64.8% antioxidant activity in the beta-carotene linoleic acid system and 61.6% in the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl system. This fraction showed the presence of sterols, vitamin C, and tannins as phytoconstituents. The antioxidant activity of methanol extract and aqueous extract were comparatively less significant than that of ethyl acetate extract, and n-hexane extract showed the least activity. The ethyl acetate extract and methanol extract of both fresh and dry stems further exhibited antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive bacteria, including Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus species. The results of the study have implications in the use of C. quadrangularis as an antibacterial agent and more so as an antioxidant in several applications requiring these properties. |
This study again shows a high antioxidant capability exerted by Cissus.
There are several more studies, mainly related to fracture repair, however I was not able to access the abstracts for these (if anyone can point out somewhere better than Pubmed, that would be good). However there were not any studies that especially referenced the effects on joints/ligaments - I would guess that it exerts an analgesic/anti-inflammatory effect which serves to deal well with symptoms of injury. I'll post some kind of update when I have an opinion based on using it.