With all the caveats in my post above, I did go back later with the old GI tract humming and did a week with rhubarb extract. No problems and presumably it worked.

1: World J. Gastroenterol. 2006 Nov 28;12(44):7136-42.

Antimicrobial activity of Sapindus mukorossi and Rheum emodi extracts against H
pylori: In vitro and in vivo studies.

Ibrahim M, Khan AA, Tiwari SK, Habeeb MA, Khaja MN, Habibullah CM.

Centre for Liver Research and Diagnostics, Deccan college of Medical Sciences and
Allied Hospitals, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad 500064, India.
ibrahim_cce@rediffmail.com

AIM: to evaluate the antibacterial activity of Sapindus mukorossi (S. mukorossi)
and Rheum emodi (R. emodi). METHODS: Powders of S. mukorossi and R. emodi were
extracted successively with petroleum ether, benzene, chloroform and ethanol and
were concentrated in vacuum. The disk diffusion method was used for in vitro
studies and in vivo studies were performed on male Wister rats. Thirty resistant
clinical isolates of H pylori, as determined by their antibiotic sensitivity
patterns by E-test, along with two Gram +ve (S. aureus, B. subtilis) and two Gram
-ve (E. coli, P. vugaris) organisms were screened for their susceptibility
patterns against these extracts. RESULTS: In our screening, all 30 resistant
isolates and the other four organisms (two Gram +ve S. aureus, B. subtilis and
two Gram -ve, E. coli, P. vugaris) were sensitive to the test compounds. It was
found that ethanol and chloroform extracts of S. mukorossi and ethanol and
benzene extracts of R. emodi inhibited H pylori at very low concentrations. In
the in vitro study, the isolates showed a considerable zone of inhibition at very
low concentrations (10 mug/mL) for both the extracts. In the in vivo study, the H
pylori infection was cleared with minimal doses of extracts of S. mukorossi (2.5
mg/mL) and R. emodi (3.0 mg/mL) given orally for seven days. CONCLUSION: We can
conclude from this study that the extracts of S. mukorossi and R. emodi inhibited
the growth of pylori in vitro and, in in vivo studies, the H pylori infection
cleared within seven days at very low concentrations. We also found that H pylori
did not acquire resistance against these herbal extracts even after 10
consecutive passages.

Publication Types:
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

PMID: 17131475 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]