Wheatgrass Cures

Wheatgrass is the young grass shoots of the common wheat plant. This grass is commonly used in juices, health powders and tablets because of its high content of chlorophyll. It is said to be a body cleanser, neutralizing toxins, and offer incredible health benefits. While the extent of its healing properties are somewhat contested, there are certain benefits that have been scientifically proven.

Scientific Cures

• According to the American Cancer Society, a 2002 study shows that wheatgrass juice, when used with standard medical care, can help control the symptoms of ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammation of the large intestine. The study tested fresh wheatgrass juice against a placebo drink in a group of people who had ulcerative colitis. All of the people in the study continued receiving regular medical care. Those who drank approximately three ounces of the juice daily for a month had fewer symptoms, including rectal bleeding, diarrhea and pain, than those who drank the placebo.

  There have also been individual reports of successful shrinkage of tumors among cancer patients who choose to follow the wheatgrass diet. But there have been no clinical trials to verify if this would be a consistently successful diet.

  According to Dr. Chris Reynolds from the University of Western Australia, wheatgrass helps in the natural healing process, and instead of intervening, it actually works to facilitate the healing. Dr. Reynolds approached wound healing by using a wheatgrass extract that would dry the surface of wounds by sealing the wound with a new layer of skin cells (epithelials), which allowed new cells to grow underneath the surface layer. The use of wheatgrass helped facilitate a faster healing wound with minimal scarring, an absence of bacterial infection and a reduction in swelling and inflammation. This works similarly with those suffering with eczema. Wheatgrass extracts can be used to help treat and prevent dry skin breakouts.

  A treatment using wheatgrass has been developed for the blood disease thalassaemia, according to the Straits Times, Feb. 18, 2004. Developed by a medical research institute in India, this technique involves orally administering 100 ml of wheatgrass juice daily, and the result was that the amount of blood transfusions dropped from once every other week to once every three months.

Unproven Wheatgrass Cures

• Wheatgrass was first envisioned as a cure for disease by Ann Wigmore, who wrote "The Wheatgrass Book" touting the conditions wheatgrass could cure. These health benefits include helping prevent diabetes, cancer and heart diseases, aid in digestion, curing hair loss and helping with menopause. While some of these may be true, there have been few scientific studies that confirm the effects of wheatgrass.

  Wigmore outlines in her book that wheatgrass can be used as a cure for cancer. This, she says, is because wheatgrass is filled with chlorophyll, or oxygen, and oxygen is "a bullet to killer cancer cells." Chlorophyll can increase the production of hemoglobin, which means that more oxygen can get to the cancer in order to attack it.