Maca: Discover How This New Phytonutrient Can Ease Menopausal Symptoms
By Amy Nancarrow
Published in Healthy Options Magazine, New Zealand, April 2002. Reproduced by permission

Maca at a Glance

Maca is a dehydrated, cruciferous root vegetable, and not a drug, so it is imported without any problems. It is a benign, medicinal food, which has been in use for 10,000 years, possibly more, and has had ample time to be judged effective. It is also easily affordable, costing less than $12 per month.

It Contains: Proteins, as polypeptides, make up 11 per cent of the dry maca root, calcium makes up 10 per cent and magnesium and potassium are present in significant amounts. Other minerals include iron, silica and traces of iodine, manganese, zinc, copper and sodium. Vitamins in maca are thiamine, riboflavin and ascorbic acid. The amino acid proteins in maca include aspartic acid, glutamic acid, serine, histidine, glycine, threonine, cystine, alanine, arginine, tyrosines, valine, methionine, isoleucine, lysine, proline, hoproline and surcosine.

Benefits: According to doctors in Peru and the US, maca may be of benefit for: 

• Menopausal symptoms
  Hot flushes, tender breasts, sleeplessness, emotional upsets, 'brain fog', vaginal dryness

• Osteoporosis 
  Significant bone rebuilding, improvement in bone density 

• Energy-booster 
  Balances the endocrine system - thyroid and adrenal glands

• Male impotence

• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

• Period problems 
  Pain, PMS, flooding and/or scant flow.

Rather than hormone replacement therapy (HRT), millions of women are putting their faith in a remedy which has been used for 10,000 years, is safe and amazingly effective - a cruciferous root vegetable from Peru called maca.

Anthropologist Dr Viana Muller has brought this extraordinary remedy to the attention of the Western world. "Once in a decade, a remedy used by native peoples for thousands of years comes to our attention, and it seems so important for health, that we wonder how we ever got along without it," Dr Muller says. "Maca is that kind of supplement. Now women have an alternative to hormone replacement therapy drugs. Maca works in an entirely different and more satisfactory way for most women than phytoestrogen herbs like black cohosh and liquorice root. Men, too, find that maca counteracts the difficulties they may experience in maintaining good sexual relationships as they age, due to a general slowing down in the output of the endocrine glands."

Research
The scientist responsible for much of the current knowledge of the maca root is Dr Gloria Chacon de Popivici, a biologist trained at the University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru. Dr Chacon says that maca root works in a fundamentally different way than HRT, promoting optimal functioning of the hypothalamus and the pituitary, thereby improving the functioning of all the endocrine glands.

Dr Chacon has done the most important scientific work to date on the maca plant. She isolated four alkaloids from the maca root and carried out animal studies, with male and female rats given either powdered maca root or the alkaloids. Females receiving either root powder or alkaloids showed multiple egg follicle maturation, while in males, significantly higher sperm production and mobility rates were noted than in control groups.

Dr Chacon established that it was the alkaloids in the maca root, not its plant hormones, that produced fertility effects on the ovaries and testes of the rats. "These effects are measurable within 72 hours of dosing the animals," she said. She deduced that the alkaloids were acting on the hypothalamus-pituitary axis, which explains why both male and female rats were affected in a gender-appropriate manner. This also explains why the effects in humans are not limited to ovaries and testes, but also include the pancreas, thyroid as well as the adrenals, giving a feeling of greater energy and vitality.

Dr Muller says, "Implications of Dr Chacon's discovery of the pituitary-stimulating effects of maca are enormous. This means that from a holistic point of view, hormone replacement therapy (even the natural varieties) will no longer be the gold standard for optimising health."

Alternatives to HRT 
It is important to remember that maca itself does not contain any hormones. Its action on the body jogs the pituitary into producing the precursor hormones, which ultimately end up raising oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels, as well as helping to balance the adrenal glands, thyroid and pancreas. But this occurs naturally, unlike time-bomb drugs, which throw the entire body into a dangerous state of confusion.

Dr Jorge Malaspina, a respected cardiologist, has been using maca in his Lima, Peru practice for over a decade. He says, "Maca does not cause the ovaries in women to atrophy, as conventional hormone replacement therapy does. This means that maca may be discontinued at any time without danger." He adds, "Different medicinal plants work on the ovaries by stimulating them. With maca, though, we should say that it regulates the ovarian function."

Dr Malaspina reiterates what Dr Chacon says about the way maca regulates the internal secretion organs, such as the pituitary, the adrenal glands, and the pancreas. He has even found mace to be effective on women who have undergone complete hysterectomies. He describes one patient who had a serium oestradiol level of 15, which is very low. After two months on mace it went up to 75. He says that a level above 60 is an adequate postmenopausal level. "Maca enables the adrenals to make sufficient hormones to avoid symptoms," he says. Dr Malaspina adamantly prefers maca therapy to HRT. "The presence of outside hormones circulating in the system sends a message to the pituitary and the hypothalamus that there is a sufficient quantity of hormones in the body, and so they stop producing them.

When menopause arrives, the ovaries are atrophied and do not produce the oestrogen and progesterone, which the body requires minimally to function. For this reason, I encourage women to start with maca before menopause. It seems to help the endocrine system to stay in balance."

'Natural Viagra'
Doctors Malaspina, Muller and Chacon, as well as doctors from the US and Canada, also have good news for men who are suffering age-related sexual dysfunction. They can forget expensive, possibly dangerous Viagra. Maca works extremely well, and safely. Dr Jorge Aguila Calderon, Dean of Human Medicine at Limas' National University of Federico of Villareal, prescribes maca for a wide variety of conditions, including osteoporosis and the healing of bone fractures in the very elderly. He says, "Maca has a lot of easily absorbable calcium in it, plus magnesium, and a fair amount of silica, which we are finding very useful in treating decalcification of bones in children and adults."

Dr Calderon has also helped patients overcome male impotence, male sterility, and female sterility by employing maca therapy. Additional problems he treats with maca are rickets, various forms of anaemia, menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes and night sweats, climacteric and erectile difficulties in men, premature ageing, and general states of weakness such as chronic fatigue.

Another health professional using maca is Dr Garry F. Gordon, President of the International College of Advanced Longevity medicine in Chicago, Illinois. He said, "Using maca myself, I experienced a significant improvement in erectile tissue response. I call it nature's answer to Viagra.

"What I see in maca is a means of normalising our steroid hormones like testosterone, progesterone and oestrogen.

"Therefore, it has the facility to forestall the hormonal changes of ageing. It acts on men to restore them to healthy functional status in which they experience a more active libido . Lots of men and women who previously believed their sexual problems were psychological, are now clearly going to look for something physiological to improve quality of life in the area of sexuality. Of course, as someone interested in longevity, I am aware that mortality comes on much sooner for those individuals whose sexual activity is diminished or nonexistent. I believe that people who engage in sex twice a week or more, live longer. I've found sexual activity to be a reliable marker for overall ageing."

Ref. Nature & Health, Dec 1999/Jan 2000. Permission to reprint granted.