DR NEIL Solomon has been in the field of medicine in many capacities. Apart from practising and researching, he has held faculty appointments and professorships in prestigious US universities, such as the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

A recipient of the Schwentkner Award for excellence in research, he has appeared on many TV and radio talk shows, given daily medical commentaries on CNN-VV, and authored for 18 years a globally syndicate health advice column for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. For 10 years, he served as Maryland’s first Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene.

He was in Kuala Lumpur last week to promote his booklet Liquid Island Noni The Tropical Fruit with 101 Medicinal Uses and give a talk on noni. I interviewed him for two hours and throughout that time he came across as an affable and candid man with a great sense of humour. Once when he got sidetracked from an idea he was pursuing and had some difficulty recalling it, he quipped, "I didn’t take enough noni!"

Liquid noni has been his subject of research since 1997. Some of the findings of his study are published in the booklet, currently being marketed here by MPH in a package that also includes an audiotape of him speaking about noni.

He didn’t profess at all to be a know-all, and gave most of the credit for noni to Dr Ralph Heinicke – "He ‘s the man who did most of the research on noni. Let me tell you, compared to what I've done, 99 per cent goes to him. He did the real strong brainwork. He really worked out the mechanism."

Dr Solomon welcomed critical probing at the outset of our interview, even admitted that he would probably answer some of my questions with "I don’t know". As it turned out, the occurrence rate of that was slight, and the interview proved to be highly illuminating and revealing.

QUESTION: In your booklet Liquid Island Noni, you recommend specific doses of the juice. On what do you base these recommendations? How is the optimal dosage scientifically arrived at?

Neil Solomon: There is no such things as optimal dosage. The optimal dosage is the dose that works. Whatever works with you is optimal dosage. If it doesn’t work, don’t take it. That’s it. I talked to 50 health professionals who represented over 10,000 clients and patients who taken noni and asked them, "What worked best for your people?" I got copious notes, and from all that material I came up with what on an average worked for most of the people when it worked. About 78 per cent of the people said it worked for them. Could you proved it scientifically? Absolutely not. I asked some who had taken it a whole series of questions – what dose did you take it?, for how long?, From that data, I guestimated. I came up with something that I thought would make a little more sense.

Q: Is there a danger of overdosing?

NS: Yes, big danger.

Q: What would that be?

NS: Bankruptcy. (We both laugh)

Q: What about to the body?

NS: Less than five per cent of people who took noni had side-effects. Another five per cent had an honest-to-God allergy to the fruit itself. How did the allergy manifest itself? People had a rash, but soon as they stopped the noni, it went away. People had diarrhoea. When they cut the dose or stopped, it went away. People would belch. As Soon as they stopped, it went away.

Q: Would you say that the 10 per cent who were allergic to the fruit would not be able to benefit from it at all?

NS: Don’t think of it if you’re allergic. You should never take anything that you’re allergic to. If you’ve got an allergy to it, your body is telling you something: get rid of it.

Q: According to the dosage table in your booklet, someone starting on noni should take the loading dose of 2oz before breakfast and 2oz before dinner for a month, followed by 2oz before breakfast and 1oz before dinner for five months(therapeutic dose), then 1oz before breakfast and 1oz before dinner (maintenance dose). You also said that if required, they could take an extra dose before lunch…..

NS: I don’t say that anymore. From new data accumulated, I now say, take a very small amount at the beginning, a teaspoon. Because if you take a teaspoonful three days and you are allergic, you don’t want to go on. You’d want your money back. Get your money back. I think that’s important. If for no other reason, it will make the company keep track of who’s allergic. If you’re not sure, take it for a week. Certainly by the end of the week, 99 per cent of people will know if they are allergic.

If you’re not allergic, then start with 2oz before breakfast and 2oz before dinner. I really want people on it for six months. Then after that, start dropping it to 3oz a day and then 2oz. But let’s say when you go from 4oz to 3 and you’re doing fine, and you go from 3 to 2 and you stop doing fine, then I say you go back up. One way is to start all over from 4 to 3 to 2, or go the other way from 2 to 3, which is cheaper. If you’re fine on 3, maintain it at that.

Q: Should one maintain the drinking of noni for life?

NS: Ya, I think it’s worthwhile.

Q: Would you say that everyone who committed themselves to noni would definitely benefit from it?

NS: No. Of the 10,000 people, it was efficacious for 78 per cent. And that’s not unusual. I saw 30.000 patients in my pratice over 30 years, and I’d say I didn’t even bat 75 per cent with conventional medicine. Why? Because everybody’s body different, everybody reacts differently, their genes are different. Or you could be in such a polluted area that your free radicals are sky-high. If anybody tells you it works 100 per cent, can you be sure they’re not telling you the truth.

Q: Are there ways of enhancing the efficacy of noni?

NS: To get the noni juice to be palatable, and to get rid of the odour, (Stephen) Story and (John) Wadsworth added grape juice and blueberry juice. Now, I don’t think the company (Morinda Inc) knows about this – I never told it to them – but think when Wadsworth and Story added stuff to the juice, they actually enhanced the noni juice from what it was before. They didn’t do it internationally, but I think what they added was something that maybe enhanced the antioxidant effect. Do I have scientific proof? No.

Q: What do you base your theory on ?

NS: I went to Hawaii and talked to the kahunas, and what I find is that the effects of this noni juice is different from what I heard from the kahunas. The company added some other stuff to it but they wouldn’t tell me what it is. They only told me it’s pure and natural and it’s not harmful. It’s a trade secret.

Q: Are they not obliged to tell the public? Does it not contravene any food and drug law?

NS: No, because it’s not a drug. It’s a food supplement. It’s like you cannot know what goes into Coca-Cola.

Q: Noni may be a food supplement, nonetheless they make certain claims….

NS: They do not make claims. The people who take it make the claims.

NS: They say it, "helps".

Q: Isn’t that a claim?

NS: No, you’d have to say "cure". You can "help" all you want. They don’t say "cure". But the people who take it have told me things like "It cured my cancer". I asked them how, they said it made them feel better. "Did you get X-rays that showed the cancer was cleared?" "No," they said. I get their permission to call their doctor, and the doctor tells me the cancer is not cured, absolutely not, but the patient does feel better and suffers a lot less pain.

Q: Is that due to the juice or to autosuggestion?

NS: I think it’s a combination, I think there’s a placebo effect. Even in medicine, there is a placebo effect. About 30 per cent. There’s nothing wrong with that, because placebos can cause chemical changes in the brain and make you feel better. But I’m convinced that there’s more to noni than just the placebo effect. I’ve talked to a lot of the 10,000 people. They say – not all, but a lot – that when they stopped taking noni, their ailments came back. But when they got back to it, they were amazed they felt better. With that many people, you can’t be dealing with a placebo. Placebos don’t work that way.

I’m not an employee of the company. I honestly don’t care whether it’s liquid, whether it’s tea, whether it’s capsule, or whatever – I really believe in the noni fruit. And I think you have a local noni here that might be very interesting. And it would be really worthwhile for your country to explore it. I’m a big believer in antioxidants, and it would not surprise me if your noni is a good source of antioxidants.

Q: Has anybody done double-blind clinical studies on noni?
NS: Nobody

Q: Why not?

NS: I think Morinda ought to do it. But on the other hand, I can see where they’re coming from. If they do clinical studies and they find it really does work, it’s a drug. It will cost half a billion dollars and seven to 10 years to get through FDA (Food and Drug Administration). And then it’s going to cost the people. If they have to get a prescription for it and go to a drugstore to buy what’s prescribed, it’s going to be more than what the’re paying now. Morinda also believes – and I can’t argue with that – that 75 per cent of all drugs today had their origin in herbs. And of those, 55 per cent are from the Rubiaceae family, of which Morinda citrifolia is the "queen".

Q: Of all the diseases that are mentioned in your booklet, which would noni be most effective at alleviating?

NS: You mean "helping".

Q: Yes

NS: Pain. It has a similar effect to, I think, a lot of painkillers but it is not a narcotic. It'’ natural and non-addictive.

Energy level. It gives people more energy.

Mental clarity.

Q: I have a friend who said said he felt worse after taking noni….

NS: Was he on the juice?

Q: No, powder

NS: Tell him to get on the juice and see how he feels.

Q: Does noni help I clearing clogged arteries?

NS: I don’t think it can. But I think maybe it can help prevent the progression of clogged arteries. There is good, strong data to show that.

Q: How does noni help to overcome addiction, e.g to cigarettes or alcohol?

NS: Noni helps to produce xeronine, which is an alkaloid. Nicotine is an alkaloid, cocaine is an alkaloid, most addictive things are alkaloids. What xeronine can do is hook on to those sites, those receptors for those alkaloids that are addictive, and block their effect.

I’ll tell you how it works better. You take the noni, keep it in your mouth for four minutes, and swish it around. The reason for this is, it will get absorbed through the buccomucosa that bypasses the liver. Don’t go to the liver straight away because you want to keep that alkaloid intact to fight the addiction. After four minutes, swallow it. So you get all the effects of swallowing it plus you get the anti-addiction effect. Heinicke turned me on to that by telling me that people who kept it in the mouth stopped smoking.

NS: Yes, they swear they can see better. I’m trying to get confirmation from an ophthalmologist. How could it work? Theoretically, I could give you an answer but I don’t know if it’s the right one. A cataract is a clouded lens. Noni could help uncloud the lens because it gets rid of toxins. And if you think of cataracts as toxins, that’s probably what could happen.

NS: Noni is not a cure. Noni is not going to prevent you from dying. If you’re going to succumb to the disease you’re going to succumb. Don’t think of noni as a medication, as a cure, because it will build expectations in people they shouldn’t have. Treat it as just another thing you can take to help you along every day, make you feel better, and if you’re ill, help you a bit. Don’t expect any miracles.

NS: I used to have mood disorders. But I believe noni has helped that now. I used to at times just work. Work, work and other times I’d get withdrawn and not want to have much to do with anything. Now I’m more stable. I have some psoriasis. Noni’s helped that. I think I have more energy. Maybe that’s what helped the mood disorders. When you have more energy. You don’t feel so down.

Source : Kee Thuan Chye, New Straits Times, 10.8.99