Relieve IBD symptoms… and keep them from coming back… with mastic gum

Ancient Greek ‘chewing gum’ beats back IBD [Crazy!]

If you’re suffering from IBD, your doc doesn’t know how to help you.

But he’ll sure try…

He’ll look to EVERY new drug that Big Pharma rolls out. He might even put you on ALL of them!

When one after another FAILS, you might think you’ll have to stick it out for the rest of your life.

But you NEVER get used to the pain… or the embarrassment of always having to run to the toilet.

Fortunately, there’s something else you can try.

It’s considered one of the oldest Mediterranean spices…

But for the last 2,500 years, Greek islanders have treasured it as a kind of liquid gold.

A protective ‘teardrop treasure’

You may have heard of mastic gum as a natural digestive aid. You can chew it after a meal to settle your stomach and keep indigestion at bay.

But mastic gum has got enough muscle to tackle even the WORST gastric issues…

And that’s why you need to know about it if you’re struggling with IBD.

Mastic gum is made from a tree resin called mastiha (which means “to chew”).

Mastiha trees grow throughout the Mediterranean, but there’s only ONE place you can find them shedding “mastic tears” — that is, droplets of sap that flow like tears to the ground, where they harden and are collected.

And that’s on Chios, one of the biggest islands in the Aegean Sea, known as “the island of gum.”

These “crying trees” produce this resin only at a certain time of year… and only when their trunks are spliced open.

The “tears of Chios” are harvested from mastic trees (Pistacia lentiscus var. Chia) that grow on the rocky terrain of southern Chios – in a process that’s a closely guarded secret.

During Byzantine times, locals built fortress-like villages to protect the mastic trees and their sap from pirates and to keep them out of view from other invaders.

Even today, these mastic villages (a.k.a. Mastihohoria) are surrounded by high walls that must be climbed by ladders to enter!

Under the Ottoman Empire, mastiha was worth its weight in gold… and Chios was one of its most valuable provinces.

During the Greek War of Independence, the people of the Mastihohoria region were spared in the Chios Massacre of 1822… just so they could continue to provide mastiha to the sultan and his harem.

But it wasn’t until 2015 that the European Medicines Agency recognized mastiha – and mastic gum — as a natural medicine.

It took THAT LONG for science to catch up to what the earliest physicians of antiquity (like Hippocrates) knew and wrote about.

Better late than never!

And even now, we’ve managed to identify only 80 of its HUNDREDS of potentially healing components.

But we know what it can do…

The activities of mastiha have been found to be antimicrobial, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory.

And those qualities make it a GODSEND for IBD sufferers.

In a 2018 clinical trial, researchers out of Greece found that treating patients with mastic gum significantly improved their IBD… by MULTIPLE factors.

The IBD patients FELT better… and their stool samples showed a significant reduction in biomarkers associated with the disease.

The placebo group, on the other hand, showed an INCREASE in inflammatory markers!

And a 2019 double-blind, placebo-controlled study (the “gold standard”) out of Greece found that mastiha can help stave off IBD flare-ups if you’re in remission.

The people of the Greek isles consume ground mastiha… even chew the whole “crystals” of translucent resin.

Regardless of how you get it, a little goes a long way.

In Greece, you’ll also find “mastic tears” as an ingredient in digestifs at the bar – including Chios Mastiha Liqueur and Mastika.

But since they contain added sugar… and both sugar and alcohol can aggravate IBD… it’s better to go straight to the source.

Mastic gum should be easy to find at your local health food store, though sometimes it’s referred to as “Arabic gum” or “Yemen gum.”

But beware of imposters…

Mastiha from Chios is a Protected Designation of Origin (P.D.O.) product, which means no resin from OTHER trees is legally allowed to masquerade as it.