A good friend of mine had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with Dr. Charles Garnier who is a government research scientist in French Polynesia who specializes in researching Morinda citrifolia (noni). He received a Masters Degree from UCLA with his thesis on the components of noni. He also holds a Doctorate in agronomy science. His specialty is to analyze plants and break down all the materials that are contained in the plants, including all the minerals, vitamins, nutriceuticals, and so forth. He has proven that the materials contained in plants come directly from the soil in which they grow. The makeup of the terrain, the weather, geographic locale, and other factors, also affect what is contained in the plant because they affect soil conditions.
He has shown that soil has such identifiable traits (with regard to what it contains), that a specific piece of ground leaves its "fingerprint" on plants that grow there. The combination and levels of minerals, vitamins, and other trace materials in the plant will be found in a certain configuration if the plant grew in a specific spot. Thus, a plant that grows in one location on an island can be distinguished from a plant that grows in another location. And it can be proven, by meticulously analyzing the soil and other plants in the vicinity, that the plant grew in a very specific location.
Dr. Garnier has applied these same principles to the study of noni around the world. For many years he has carefully analyzed the makeup of noni plants from various tropical locations, including among others, all the islands of French Polynesia, Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, Central and South America and various parts of Asia.
In fact, Dr. Garnier's research has shown that some noni plants growing outside French Polynesia can actually be harmful to the body. He found that noni plants growing on islands that are relatively active volcanically (such as many places in the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines) absorb high levels of mercury and lead. Some of these levels that he measured were dangerously high, enough so to make a human ill.
When a person ingests this noni containing high levels of heavy metals, the mercury and lead poison the body. There have been numerous reports of people in the Philippines becoming ill when they drink homemade noni juice produced from local noni plants. About five years ago, the government closed down a noni capsule business (Japanese owned) in Hawaii because the product was making consumers ill.
There are no active volcanoes in French Polynesia, and have not been for a long, long time. In fact, the French Polynesian Islands are geologically millions of years older than the Hawaiian Islands. Dr. Garnier also found that noni plants which grow on flat terrain contain fewer beneficial nutrients than noni that grows on sloped terrain. Also, noni growing where there is too much rainfall (which leaches out the soil nutrients) or too little rainfall (which doesn't allow for adequate plant growth), produced inferior fruit.
Dr. Garnier noted that even among the 118 islands of French Polynesia, there is a difference between the noni plants, depending on which island they come from (and even which area on the island they come from, such as in the valley or up on the ridge ).
To make an effective noni product a company must first have a thorough understanding of the science of noni, including the ability to analyze in minute detail all the materials that are contained in the various noni plants. Second, the company must have available a wide cross-section of noni plants, grown under optimal conditions, that they can harvest and scientifically blend to provide the ultimate natural product to bless the body.
Noni is a very complex gift of nature – you be the judge.
